Interview with Stella Polk, 1992

THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Stella Polk
DATE: 1 May 1992
PLACE: Ranch Home, Northern Mason County, Texas
INTERVIEWER: David LaRo
L: I am David LaRo. I'm with the Institute of Texan Cultures and I'm interviewing today Stella Gipson Polk. We're interviewing at her ranch home in northern Mason County on a beautiful spring day. The sun is shining outside and we're looking out under the yard oaks at the pasture out there toward the tank...just to give you a feeling of what it's like up here right now. Stella is not only a country schoolteacher, but she's written several books. The most recent book is titled For All Those Pupils Whose Lives Touched Mine, published by A&M Press about three years ago. She still writes a weekly column, "Ranch News", for the Mason newspaper. She contributes a similar column to the Marble Falls Picayune. She is the sister of the late Fred Gipson, author of several children's books and books on Mason County, including Old Yeller. I've been told that Fred was once asked, "Why do you only write about Mason County?" His reply was, "Because that's all I know anything about."
P: (Laughter)
L: Contains a powerful message, doesn't it? Stella authored
L: Mason and Mason County: A History, published by Pemberton Press and then reissued by Eaken. It's now out of print and POLK
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it's very scarce, but it is not the usual "county history/genealogy" book. It is a well-researched history book. Stella, like her brother, writes about what she knows best, and that's what makes her writing good. Stella and I will be talking about "early days, education in a rural Texas Hill Country community." There's so much she can tell us about small Hill Country schools that darned few people still know anymore.
L: Stella, I'll bet you were born in Mason county, weren't you?
P: I sure was. The first Gipson to be born in Mason County.
L: Care to tell me what year?
P: 90...1901.
L: 1901. Where did you finish high school?
P: At Mason. The old grammar school, they called it. It still stands there. It's a...going to be a museum now.
L: I've been there! What year did you finish high school?
P: 1918.
L: 1918. How many grades were you required to go through at that time in order to get a high school diploma?
P: Eleven, I think. Now it's twelve, and I think then it was eleven.
L: Well, I guess you lived with your family all during your school years.
P: Uh huh...yes.
L: Who were your family? POLK
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P: [Going back to previous question]...Except the summer I spent at San Marcos.
L: Okay; that was after you graduated. Who were your family? How many brothers and sisters did you have?
P: Well, my family was Beck and Emma Gipson. My family came from Winnsboro, Texas, and my older sister, Jenny, was born in Winnsboro.
L: Winnsboro. Your father was Beck, b-e-c-k?
P: B-e-c-k. Beckton, of course, was his name. Beckton. That's where the son...uh, grandson...gets his name - Fred's boy. Well, my father contracted such serious arthritis, or let's call it rheumatic fever, I think they called it. And the doctor told him if he didn't get out of that climate around Winnsboro - you know how damp and all - he just couldn't live. My mother always dreamed that maybe someday she could go and live where they had hills. She longed for a place where they had lots of hills. So, we...they started out in that covered wagon. What else did they have in those days? And they stopped at Beaumont and stayed there a while because my grandparents - my maternal grandparents - were there. My sister, Bessie, was born there.
L: That's the one sister, Bessie.
P: Uh huh. No; Jenny, you see, was the first one.
D: Okay. Jenny?
P: Uh huh.
L: And then Bessie... POLK
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P: Bessie.
L: And who was next?
P: I would have been, but I hadn't gotten there yet.
L: Okay.
P: Then they came on and they stopped - almost stopped for good - at College Station. We've always wondered what our history would have been like.
L: Well, you would have cheated us out of a lot of good books from Mason County, wouldn't you?
P: [Laughter] And then we came on - he came on and strangely enough...I'm going to add this because it's a family history. Mama had a big rawhide trunk. She wanted to take something to her new neighbors. And she thought, "Well, why not pack a group of alligator eggs?" So she packed them in that big trunk. Well, I don't know how long it took them to get to Mason County because my daddy stopped and worked, sometimes, on the way. When they got to Mason County and got to where they could open up the trunk, it was full of baby alligators. [Laughter]
L: Oh, my gosh! What a present to give your neighbors! Oh, man. So, you had, uh...when you got here, you were born, and later Fred. Were there any others between you and Fred? Or was Fred the baby of the crowd?
P: Ethel was my...I lost her so early, in l936, we lost P: Ethel.
L: So, Ethel was before you or after you? POLK
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P: Ethel was born after I was. I was born in Mason, Ethel was born in Mason, Fred...all of them were born in Mason. That is, their home life was in Mason.
L: So, altogether I've got five of you kids?
P: Seven.
L: Seven...who were the two I've missed? I've got Jenny and Bessie and you, and then Ethel and Fred. There's some in between?
P: That's five. Cricket - or Christiana.
L: Oh, Cricket I've met. And who else?
P: Charles. He was the baby.
L: Oh, Charles was the baby. I don't know why I had it in mind Fred was. Okay, we're going to talk about schools. Where did you first teach school?
P: At Hilda. I had planned, when I came home from San Marcos that summer, I was going to enter the university. But time does strange things. That was in the first World War and they took very, very few women for anything then. And my brother-in-law was Lee Loeffler, L-O-E-F-F-L-E-R, and my sister, Jenny - the two of them were teaching at Hilda.
L: Hilda is a little community, about twenty miles south of here?
P: Uh huh. That's right. You know where it was. Well, Lee didn't want to go off to war unless I would consent to teach P: with Jenny. I didn't much want to. I wanted to go to the university. Well, I thought maybe I wouldn't pass the POLK
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examinations. I had just come out of school, and it wasn't a bit of problem to pass those examinations. So, of course, I got it. I was sixteen years old when I started teaching there. Oh, my goodness.
L: So, you had no time for college. You went right out of high school to teaching? How did you get certified to teach at the age of sixteen?
P: They gave teachers' examinations. The...I guess you'd call it the...well, it would be the school board. Whatever you would call it, maybe you could call it.
L: In Austin?
P: Uh huh, in Austin.
L: State Teachers'...
P: They put out those examinations. They thought very few people could pass them, but...I have an idea they needed more teachers. I wasn't...that...wonderful. But Jenny had always taught the primary and Lee had taught the others. They were both - I don't know exactly about degrees and all, but they both had attended San Marcos Normal. And Jenny couldn't teach algebra because she had always taught those little ones. Well, Stella fell...well, she fell heir to algebra. It didn't bother me because I'd just come out of high school. It would bother me now. Well, I had three boys almost my age. One of them was a little older than I was. Do you want the story or P: not?
L: Sure! Do I look like I'm going to sleep? POLK
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P: No! I just wanted to know. Anyway, I had never given an examination or anything...and I had taught those little ones until I turned out in time for the boys to come for their algebra. And they were very polite, very nice boys. They could hardly get in those little desks, but they managed. Well, we had algebra. I thought I was a pretty good teacher. They knew...oh yes, they wrote their paper so nicely. But that's all they wrote! Finally, I gave a test. That was the first test I had ever given in my life, and I don't think I made it hard. But those boys sat there, politely, smiling. I said, "Boys, don't you know any of the answers?" They admitted they didn't. I'm ashamed to tell this - I helped them with their test. Oh! They were the most grateful boys you ever saw. The only thing that ruined it, I was dating one of those boys' older brother, and he spilled the beans. He said they were laughing all over the country about that little old teacher they had. They wouldn't have to study algebra now. She would...if they looked sad...she would help them. You have heard that old saying about...what is it? Heaven help the woman that...well, it's a...
L: Something about...a woman scorned?
P: A woman scorned. Well, I was a woman scorned. I really drilled them on that algebra. They were just so sweet and nice and polite. I put it on the board - that's what they P: used all those pretty blackboards for, then. And one of them made "5"; the other two couldn't pass anything. They just POLK
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wrote their heading. I took up the papers. And I guess that's what comes of a...hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That's right!
L: Okay.
P: Well, Lee came back in the spring and, of course, he wanted back into his school. I had come to love those little pupils, and I didn't want to leave them, but I did. I left. Then I went to Fly Gap later that year.
L: Before we leave Hilda, let me ask you a question. I would like to try to put this in perspective. You went there in 1918?
P: Uh huh.
L: I looked this up, and I find that's just barely seventy years after old John Meusebach had signed the Indian treaty - seventy years later.
P: What was his name?
L: John Meusebach.
P: Oh, Meusebach. Yeah. That's right.
L: This was seventy years after he had signed the treaty with the Indians to bring the Germans in here.
P: That's exactly right. That goes in there.
L: Was Mason County still pretty "German" in 1918?
P: All German, that I knew. But, you see, my parents had come to that part of the Hill Country when it was hardly P: settled at all. And they were what they called "Anglos". The Germans were..."the German" part of Mason. Well you know, POLK
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of course, it didn't go too well - two different sections. But anyway, you don't want to get into the Mason County War, I don't guess, although it had already happened, before my parents got there. They were through with it by then. All but the feelings. The feelings were there as long as I lived. When I wrote the Mason Pageant, they almost had the war again.
So, they had me cut a lot of it out. [Laughter]
L: When you taught at Hilda, did you live in that community - the Hilda community?
P: Yes. My...Jenny's parents-in-law had a two-story building. Now, Germans at that time were living well. They had lived that long. They came in about '49. You see, that was 1918, and they had done well. Even a few of them had bought a few cars, but they couldn't drive them for the roads were so awful. So they put them up on blocks. And kept them. [Laughter]
L: I was going to ask about that. How far was the two-story house where you lived from the schoolhouse?
P: I imagine about a mile and a half.
L: How did you get to school every day?
P: You know...you know how it is when two people walk?
L: Shank's mare?
P: We walked.
L: Did you have to cross any hills or mountains or rivers or L: creeks to get to school every day? POLK
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P: We had to cross...right at...almost...just right at where they lived was Beaver Creek. A beautiful Beaver Creek, then. And I always thought, "That creek sings a song." Well, it didn't sing a song until I got through with those boys - teaching them algebra. But, after that, I felt so good about everything, I could just feel old Beaver Creek singing a song. Oh, it was a beautiful thing, then.
L: [Laughter] Is Beaver Creek still running? I saw it, coming up here.
P: It's still there. It has suffered from the drought. And what hurt me, when Lee died...Jenny and her children didn't quite agree on things, so they sold that. Their home. The home was just a German home, but that creek! They had a lot of that creek, but it didn't mean anything much to them. My son was a great pal of theirs, hers, and it just broke his heart when they sold out. He just loved Beaver Creek. It's still there.
L: You've told me that the Germans were in that community, most of them were fairly well off. They had nice places.
P: They had begun to. They had really suffered their suffering from coming across the ocean...and landing there.
L: Did they have rock homes?
P: Most of them had rock homes, or they had good homes. And their church house there is very nice now. And their cemetery where my sister, her husband, and the little baby girl are...
L: Your sister, Jenny, is buried down there? POLK
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P: What?
L: Your sister, Jenny?
P: Uh huh.
L: I was gonna ask about transportation. You've said some of 'em had cars, but they were up on blocks. I guess that's because of the war and they couldn't get tires and gas? How'd they get around?
P: Well, the roads were just so bad...they just mired down - the tires did. And they couldn't travel for the roads. It just rained and rained and rained, and they had no...they had no pavement. They didn't know what that was. No, that was the reason and, of course, they were very particular about their cars. They came in wagons, they came in buggies - to church. Or, they came in what they called hacks or surries.
L: I'm familiar with those. How many children were in this first class in Hilda - the primaries that you were teaching?
P: I don't think I had but two.
L: Two? A boy and a girl?
P: Two little girls...I want to say...were the first grade at Hilda. All I can remember.
L: And then you had the algebra class with the bigger kids.
P: Yes! But, no, they had the pastor's little boy. I know ...I remember him for this reason: I had...as I had the first grade, I asked them, "If you had a nickel or a dime, which would you give up and which would you keep?" And he gave me P:POLK
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an answer that stumped me. He said, "Well, I'd give up my dime and keep the nickel." And I said, "Well, why?" "Well, now, I know they'd tell me that a dime was better, but a dime's just a little old thing and a nickel's pretty good-size money."
L: And he was a first grader?
P: He still wrote to me...a long time after that. He lived in Fredericksburg. He died, now. Well, and then...from then on, I can't remember now, but it was like first, second, third and fourth. But there wouldn't be but three or four pupils.
L: In each grade, you mean?
P: One was...I don't guess you've ever heard of him, but he was a famous lawyer, I mean a doctor, Elmer Wiederman. You wouldn't know anything about him. I think he's still alive, maybe. I believe he's in...I don't know...maybe Junction. I don't know. Anyway, I know that my husband and I were eating lunch at a cafeteria in Junction. Some little boy or girl just kept watching us. Finally, she came over there and she said, "Do you see my daddy back there?" Well, I happened to notice that was Dr. Elmer Wiederman. It was his little girl. Of course, he was really bragging to her about what a perfect student he was. She said, "Do you mind telling me," said, "was my Daddy that perfect?" And I said, "Well, you go back and tell your daddy that he couldn't spell." Oh, she was so happy! She went back there, and he waved at me. He got a kick out of that, of course. But, I wrote...Elmer wrote me P: quite some time. POLK
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But I don't remember...I've lost track of him. But I kinda think he came to the Mason...when their graduation class had their celebration...I think he came then, so...
L: In this community and the others...but right now, this one...where did you get your schoolbooks? Did each of the children have a schoolbook?
P: Had to get what?
L: A textbook.
P: We had to buy our textbooks.
L: Did each child have one or did the teacher have the only one?
P: No. As a rule, we could manage some way to get the children...well now, some of them, they didn't have them all. I know Ranch Branch didn't have all the geographies and everything.
L: What subjects was you teaching...I'm sorry, were you teaching these children at Hilda? What subjects did you actually teach? I mean, did you have it broken down into different classes?
P: Well, yes. And the biggest problem that I faced...my little two first graders couldn't speak a word of English.
L: What did they speak?
P: German. Oh, you have no idea. Their churches were in German. I felt sorry for my sister. I said,"How can you stand it?" "Oh, I just listen to the songs and enjoy that; P:POLK
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and, then, I plan the next week's work that I'm going to do. (Laughter)
L: That's a good story. Did you have problems in l9l8 with children who came to school speaking German, like we had problems, and still do, with children who come to school speaking only Spanish? Were they forbidden to speak German in the schools?
P: The trustees decided that they should not teach...uh, allow...any German in schools, for this reason...which wouldn't have affected the little ones...but they said those grown boys and all - knowing that the two teachers didn't know a word of German - that they could talk just as they wished to, and we had to stop that.
L: Mischief! Can you recall what the school building in Hilda looked like?
P: Yes, I think I can. I think it was mostly lumber. And I think, later on, it was made...I believe it was a mixture, now, of concrete and lumber. It's still down there.
L: It's still there. This wasn't a true "one-room" school, because you taught part of the kids and your sister taught part.
P: Yes, that was the only one-room school that the...apparently that ACS (sic) didn't seem to mind, because, you see, I opened school, then. I almost had to use that.
L: You opened it?
P: Well, what I mean, when I started teaching, I began P: there. ASCS...oh, not ASCS, goodnight nurse! They wanted POLK
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"one-room" schools, you see. I taught other schools. I taught...I was principal over at Katemcy - two story, three- teacher school. It was a big school. Ninety-nine students.
L: Two story, three-teacher...that was a big school.
P: That's right. But, *they didn't want that, so I didn't use it. (Note: "they" refers to A&M Press, in recent book.)
L: I'm sure that in l9l8 and in l992, the basic problems that schoolteachers face is still the same thing - how do you get that little brain to decide to learn?
P: (Laughter)
L: Do you recall, or can you think of any problems that were really unique to that school? That you wouldn't have today?
P: You mean, in those little schools?
L: Well, in this little school in the Hilda community. Was there anything there that was really unusual that you wouldn't find today? Other than the children speaking German.
P: Well, I did something that I should have been fired for. Maybe you better put that. I couldn't stand to see those little children standing around smiling...didn't know a word of...it was awful! All day long, five days a week, [they] couldn't say a word because they didn't know anything but German. They could read beautifully, but they didn't know what they were reading.
L: That still happens today, doesn't it?
P: It does?
L: Yes. POLK
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P: Well, now...if you tell that on me now, I think it'll be all right.
L: Okay. We're gonna put it in the paper, and we'll let somebody worry about it.
P: I took those little children to the far end of the school ground...and I couldn't speak very well to them...but I made them understand we were going to have a playhouse. They brought their little stove, their doll and all, and I helped them line with rocks, and all, their playhouse. And it didn't show from the building. And I don't care whether I did right or wrong, the happiness on their faces was all I asked. They could talk German there, don't you see?
L: You gave 'em a little place to go during their recess and lunch where they could talk German.
P: Yes, uh huh. That's right.
L: Well, I'm glad there are still teachers like you around, that care more about people than rules.
P: One of those first graders is an old great-grandmother now. Sometimes she remembers me when she...used to write to me, I don't know. In time, it gets where they don't. Kids don't ever forget, and I don't ever forget. I remembered more things in Ranch Branch than any place, because I taught there six years. You see, at Hilda...
L: How long were you at Hilda? That's a good question here. Were you there one year or two years? POLK
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P: Where?
L: At Hilda.
P: I didn't finish the first year. You see, Hilda came back in the...I mean, Lee came back.
L: You mean, he came back before the year was out?
P: Oh, yes.
L: And he took his job back? And you...
P: He took his job back, and I went on.
L: Where did you go from there?
P: Now, I really did go on to spend a few months at Streeter - to finish out something - but, it was a two-teacher school, and I didn't teach long enough. Then I went to Fly Gap.
L: Now, I've looked it up. That's two words, FLY GAP. Can you tell me where it got its name? That's got to interest somebody.
P: They were...that was during the time when all the men were in the army. And the Indians were terrible, even at that time, of course. And, you see, when they took the men out of circulation, it was hard on the women and the little boys and all, in some places. And they would, they had a...they formed what was known as a...oh, I can't think, right now. It was...they formed an organization. Even the old men helped with that, too. To help protect people from the Indians and, uh...
L: Sort of a "home guard"? POLK
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P: Yes, but they didn't call it that. I can look it up in P: that book, or have you got one? (Voice gets too low to understand)
L: No.
P: Well, we'll find it in a little bit. I can't think right now. But they had hidden their horses...they were scouting on the Indians at that time...they had hidden their horses up on a slope where there was so much timber they couldn't see them. The Indians couldn't see them. And that was a time when there was no way in the world you could protect...the big blowflies, and all that...because we didn't have anything then. I can remember when we got rid of the flies, nearly. And when they got back to their horses, the flies had just absolutely eaten them up, nearly. And they were just bloodied all over from those horrible flies. That's why I hate to tell that, but it was a horrible thing. They named...it was in the gap of the mountains. They named it Fly Gap. Don't you see why?
L: I see! I'll be darned. Yeah, that is an awful story about those horses.
P: I won't hardly tell that (story.) But you could shorten it some way and say that...
L: No. We'll put it in like you said it.
P: Well, that's the way it's supposed to have been.
L: Do you remember how much you got paid at Fly Gap?
P: Now, that was the one that I can't quite...it must have POLK
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been $50. It's what I want to think, because... No, at Fly Gap, now wait. I'm thinking about Hilda. I think I got $60 P: at Fly Gap.
L: Was that in addition to your room and board, or did you have to pay your own board?
P: No; I had to pay my board. I think I paid $l5 dollars a month, maybe, with the Fleming family. They've never forgotten me to this day. When I got to wanting channel cat to go in my pond, here came some of my old Fly Gap friends. They'd seined them out of their creeks and all. So I have twenty-two channel cat in the...
L: How'd they know you wanted the channel cat?
P: I talked to the...(can't hear the words) on the telephone and mentioned something about it.
L: Very nice. So you lived with the Flemings. How far was the Fleming house from the schoolhouse? And, again, how did you get back and forth?
P: On my little feet.
L: You still walked. How far was it to walk?
P: About half a mile, I'd say. Now, understand, the children rode horseback. Why, it looked like a rodeo.
L: Probably more than one on a horse, though, did they? They'd ride up two or three deep.
P: Oh, yes, uh huh. But the children rode horseback. And don't forget to put in one thing that just stumped me. When POLK
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I opened the book for us to sing that first morning, I couldn't believe how they could sing! Alto...some of those boys could come in on the bass...why, you couldn't believe it. L: What grades were these kids?
P: Well, from, now...not all the way, you know...but from the first on through the eighth.
L: Now, this was a true one-room schoolhouse at this point, right?
P: What?
l: This was a true one-room schoolhouse.
P: Oh yes, it was. Now, I really taught there three years and would have taught longer, but, uh, it became time for them to go to Mason, don't you see? They'd began to put bushes... busses out.
L: Yes. Okay, you say the kids could really sing.
P: Oh, my!
L: Were they musical, or did they play instruments - fiddles, violins...
P: Oh, yes! You ever hear of the Brown String Band at Mason?
L: I don't... Yes, I think I have, in one of the history books.
P: Oh, I have thought of...well, they called him Arlon Brown... more than one time. His mother would never release him. If he could have gone out into the world, he could have knocked people over with his fiddling. He was...ah, goodnight. Now, his two sisters had...had music, but Arlon just picked up his POLK
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music.
L: Well, I need to ask you about these kids. Was...was this L: a German community, or was this an Anglo?
P: No. No. Now they had one German (?), I think. Reason I put that there, because they all laughed, and I had to laugh, too. He had married one of the Brown girls, and, uh, he told everybody...he wanted to say that the people down there were born dancers, which they were. He said, "You know, I came into this community, and they were just born a-dancing." Born a-dancing, don't you see? But, they all accepted him and all, but they had their problems, of course, too, but...
L: Was this a rich or a poor community?
P: No, they were just moderate. Well taken care of, and what was left still had property. But they didn't go very heavily into expensive homes or anything.
L: They mostly had frame homes, huh? Board and batten, or something like that?
P: Just common homes, uh huh. And they lived well. The children...I admired them for this reason...they could go home after school and get their lessons and then milk the cows, gather up the eggs, or something like that.
L: Would you say the kids in this community were more talented than the ones in the previous one you'd been at - Hilda? As far as singing...
P: I haven't ever taught any pupils talented like that. But, POLK
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now, remember, Hilda...Hilda educated their students. They sent them off. Hilda came out... If I'd married that man that I was supposed to...he thought I ought to marry him, P: but I didn't think I ought to...but, anyway, he was a math professor at Dallas until he retired. He's dead, now. But, David, I...I'm not...I'm part German, but I'm not enough German.
L: So, you have to be called Anglo. Is that right?
P: I'm an Anglo. (Laughing)
L: What was your class size? How big was your class you had at Fly Gap, and how many were boys or girls?
P: Well, I had about twenty students, and I imagine it was just about half and half. I don't remember, but something like that. And they were all neat...I don't know. There's something about them; they're still peculiar. Because they're themselves.
L: Don't you like people that are themselves?
P: I loved them! There was one, one, family down there that was...oh, a bone in their craw. They couldn't do anything about it. Now, they were...German, but that doesn't mean that the German people didn't, weren't educated and all. But they weren't. His name, I guess maybe you ought not to put it in, but it's so interesting. (Coughing)
L: Well, don't tell it if you don't want it to go in.
P: Bohnenblust. All right; let's pick up...(Still coughing). "Bohn", or on that order, would be "beans" in German. He was born...that is, they found him in a bean patch. They don't know POLK
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whose. Somebody didn't want him.
L: So that's where he got that name.
P: "Blust" would be, according, some way in German, "blooming". "En" would be "in", maybe. Beans in blossom. The beans were all in blooming blossoms, at the time.
L: Beans in blossoms.
P: Born in blossom, beans in blossoms, bean blossoms. Isn't that interesting?
L: Yes, it is.
P: And, oh, honey, they were just filthy as the others were spotless. You can imagine. And that family tried to be good to them. They were good to them. Most communities would have scorned them, but it was hard on them. They would come with their cakes, an all. Who wanted to eat them? Now, they were filthy. And, they'd always try to put their cakes and things on the side, and then caution people not to eat them. And they were such decent people down there.
L: These were nice folks, just a little different in that respect.
P: They were clean people. But they were Anglos, and till this day, what few live down there, have retained some of those old forms. But they weren't Germans, unh unh.
L: Is the bean blossom family still around down there?
P: No. They moved off from there. 'Course, I was gone by POLK
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that time. I don't know...
L: That's good. They won't mind if we get this in print, then, will they? Can you tell me about the Fly Gap school
L: building? Now, we talked about the town - they weren't rich, they weren't poor; they were kind of middle-of-the-road, they lived in moderate houses, but they lived well. Was the school building wood or stone or permanent?
P: By the time I got there, it was a mixture of log and wood, was what...the little building still stands down there, but I've forgotten just what...hasn't been too many years since...
L: The Fly Gap building is still there. Probably not used for a school anymore, is it?
P: Oh, no!
L: How did you heat the building in those days?
P: The wood stove. One of those kind that the pipe came down and that looong wood stove. And they...I'll tell you they did heat. I had those fancy big old stoves at Katemcy - of course, we're not talking about Katemcy - but absolutely took us all night...all day...to get them warm. Boy, when that old sausage stove, as we called it, got started, why, it heated things up!
L: Who started the fire every day?
P: I usually did. I can't remember now; it seems sometimes when the weather was too bad, the Fleming boys - one of them was older than I was and one of them was my age - and, seems like, they might have gone over ahead, you know. But, I really POLK
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don't remember too much about that. But it was heated by then. Sausage stoves.
L: Here's a question I'll bet you'll remember. The building probably didn't have a water source. Did it have a well outside?
P: It had a creek running pretty close outside.
L: A creek. Okay. Who kept the water in the classroom? Did you have the boys do that? The bigger boys.
P: Sometimes they'd get on their horse and go down there with that cedar bucket and bring it back full. When it wouldn't have hurt them to have walked down there. But they were horseback. (Laughter)
L: Even then, cowboys did not like to walk, did they?
P: Oh, yeah, and listen! Some of those girls could ride. Oh, I used to look at that and think, "I wish I could ride like that." I don't think I ever acquired that. I noticed in the paper this week where Audie Fleming had died. He came over with his big old - oh, it was a donkey, big as a mule - and I was grading papers that...day. I should have stopped them. But I was a kid; I liked all that excitement. And they all wanted to ride Audie Fleming's...donkey, they called it. Boy, could he... He threw them all off! Bess finally got on, and I can see her yet. Those black plaits...flapping her back and, boy, she rode him to a finish.
L: Bess? POLK
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P: Bess. Bess Brown was her name. She died not long ago.
L: She rode him to a finish. Well, I was gonna ask if you could recall any really memorable or unusual stories about the
L: Fly Gap school. That's probably one. Can you think of anything else about Fly Gap that really is unusual, that still stands out in your memory?
P: Well, I think I could if I would just think a minute. But, I believe I can remember more of them about Ranch Branch than I can there.
L: Okay, we'll hit Ranch Branch in a second then.
P: But let's see. I remember how little Johnny...yes, I do remember one. It's not a very nice one, but it happened in those times. We had...one of the trustees was a pretty wealthy German. Now, I've got no beef against Germans, but, you know, he made them understand he was...important. But they just accepted him and went on. He didn't take any part in things much, because he was too classy. But I didn't mind it much anyway. He was... Little Johnny had a little old dirty white knife - I don't remember where he got it. Oh, he prized that knife - that was Johnny Bohnenblust. Well, one day it disappeared. He was broken-hearted. And, why I don't remember now, here came this...I could call his name but maybe I'd better not - got too many Xs in Mason for that. But, anyway, his father came over there and told me, he said, "That little old dirty devil told me that my Andrew stole his knife." And said, "I'm gonna settle POLK
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with him right here." Said, "My class doesn't mess with the Bohnenblusts." But, you know, Johnny didn't...he didn't miss...he stated all the time, he said, "Now, Andrew got my knife." Something about Andrew P: told me - you do have a sixth sense now and then - I said, "Andrew, stand up." Andrew stood up - he couldn't do any otherwise - and I just reached in his pocket and got Johnny's white knife. And gave it to Johnny. Oooh, boy, you know what that trustee...jumped high. He did: he bawled me out. He said, "I'll go to the County Judge. I'll have you fired before you can turn around." And I said, "Mr. X," (now don't use X - Mason's full of Xs), I said, "Mr. X," I said, "Did it ever occur to you that if I didn't accept that - being fired - and it went into court, what are we going to do about it?" "Why, I'll still have you fired!" I said, "Well, now, what are we going to do about it? I'd have to prove where the knife was." Boy, that did that with the trustee, but you know how the trustees do. Still, they didn't, you know, cause any trouble or anything. But I was leaving that year, because so many of them were beginning to go into Mason at that time. So, they were...some of those were getting to be big students. So, I became great friends with Andrew and the older X boy. But children can't help what their parents do. When you think about it. But I don't...I don't think...well, you might could write about it, but not make it personal in that way. But it was over a little poor half-starved boy who had POLK
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a dirty white knife. And this boy that had plenty wanted that knife. Stole it. (Laughs)
L: What year...was this when you spent your last year over at Fly Gap?
P: The last year at Fly Gap. Well, now, let's see. It would be 'l9 before I went there - I mean l9l9, l920. I guess it was l920 and '2l, maybe '22, that I taught there.
L: Must have been about '23 when you left, then - Spring of '23 or early '23.
P: Well, that's not right, either, David. I married in '2l.
L: Were you teaching there while you were married?
P: I wasn't dating Jack much then, but...that wasn't Jack's fault. Darn that Jack Polk! When he got busy and decided he wanted to get married, well...well, he had some ranch life and all. He was...they were people that...weren't on starvation or anything. But, I don't regret having married him. I wouldn't take for it. But...(Interrupted)
L: Did you keep teaching there after you and Jack got married? Did you teach there for a while?
P: I was dating him when I married then. And I married the Christmas - the first Christmas I taught at Katemcy.
P: Okay, so you had finished Fly Gap when you got married.
P: Yes. I left it.
L: Okay. Before we leave Fly Gap, I gotta ask what is a 'sausage' stove? Why did you call a stove a 'sausage' stove? POLK
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P: The sausage stove? That's what it looked like! A long iron stove. It protr[uded]...it came to...the pipe came down like that.
L: Out of the ceiling. And the body of the stove was long and like a round...(Interrupted)
P: The body was iron and it was looooong, like a sausage. And people called them the sausage stove.
L: Okay, that answers that. You got married about l92l - Christmas of '2l.
P: Christmas of '2l.
L: And you married Jack Polk.
P: Paschal was his name.
L: I'm sorry. Jack Pascal.
P: No, it was Pascal Polk (in unison).
L: Pascal Polk, and you called him Jack.
P: Polk was his name, but his daddy always called him Jack. And people today don't even know that he had the name Pascal. It's on the monument and all - Pascal (Jack) Polk.
L: He was not a German, was he?
P: No.
L: Would you categorize him as a cowboy, or a farmer, or both?
P: He was a cowboy and didn't like farming. Said his back was too long...to pick cotton. But that's no sign that boy couldn't work. But it was kinda like the old joke about the cowboys. When one came and asked to help dig a well...they asked POLK
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him can he dig a well? He said, "Yes, I could, if I could do it on horseback." Well, that's nearly like my husband.
L: He'd do it as long as he could do it from horseback?
P: What?
L: He'd do it as long as he could do it from horseback?
P: That, you know, they had that joke that, you know, to say, "Well, as long as I can do it horseback."
L: Did he do anything else for a living, other than cowboy?
P: Well, yes. Because the...great...cow drives were gone at that time, but Mason and all in this area had no...had no railroad. Mason still has no railroads, you know.
L: Right.
P: And, it was almost like gathering up the wild longhorns, but, anyway, they weren't. His daddy made those drives, but Jack was too young for that. And he helped drive that way. And I was alone quite a bit of the time for that reason. But Jack was a cowboy.
L: If he didn't have work on the home ranch, he'd work around the neighboring ranches?
P: That's right. Because, let me tell you, when he got on a horse, he was at home. So there it is.
L: Did you move into this house immediately when you got married?
P: Uh, well, I lived with his folks - we did - for a month, I guess, till he finished. Enough we could get into it. And, POLK
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understand now, it was a little bungalow then. Everything was a bungalow in that day and time.
L: And you've been here since l922?
P: l92l...well, '22. That's [when] I married him, Christmas l92l, and I've been here ever since; and it's going to take
P: more than the lights that shone all over this place to get me...
L: To get you out, huh?
P: That's right. They don't know it, I guess.
l: When you got married, you quit teachin' right away, then you didn't teach much longer.
P: I was teaching at Katemcy at the time, and I finished the next year. I taught the next year at Katemcy. But, Mason was beginning to bring in the country schools at that time. I went...when I went to Ten Mile [school], I only taught there three years until it was over for schools. Oh, we had lawyers and everybody going out and speaking, "Bring your children to Mason!" "Bring them to the city!" "They don't learn anything in these country schools."
L: Well, it makes me hurt just to hear that.
P: I told those... I told down there and I still tell it nearly everywhere. Maybe the kids didn't learn anything, but the teachers sure did! Listen, if there's anybody they wanted to get as a substitute teacher in Mason - at the elementary - it was Stella Polk. She taught all of that. Now, don't understand POLK
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that I could do everything perfectly, but I had a knowledge of all those. They called me from the first grade on. But, I was not a science teacher.
L: You didn't like science, or you just...
P: I didn't like it. Oh, my son...I'll declare...he just loved it. Now, I liked - in Biology - I liked the plant life P: and all. I really have learned wildflowers and all...I've learned that, of course. My husband taught me a lot of it.
L: I see your wildflower book right here on the table.
P: (Laughing) But, I don't know. When I came up here, my sister-in-law that I always loved so much - Lottie Sell - lived across the highway from the store in Katemcy at that...oh, not at Katemcy, but on the...I don't think they had a regular name for the store. Just Camp Air, they called it.
L: Camp Ayre - a-y-r-e, a-i-r?
P: A-i-r.
L: What's Lottie's last name?
P: Sell - S-e-l-l.
L: Okay, that's what I wrote down.
P: And I loved her and I loved her husband and I still love their children.
L: And she was Jack's sister? You and Jack married and you taught at Katemcy.
P: I finished out that year and I taught another year. And then, by that time, oh, all that great, "Bring your children POLK
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so they'll know something!" "Bring them..."
L: And they started taking them to Mason; you just quit teaching about that time?
P: I didn't try anymore. I can't...well, I'll tell you why, later, I got called into Mason. Taught twenty years there - substitute teaching. Well, that finished it out, just about.
P: That was after they'd already consolidated, understand.
Listen, you don't have to put that in. Those ranchers that had not built fine homes, and all, had saved their money. And I was drawing as much money out in those country schools as they were paying at Mason Elementary. They couldn't take that. And, then, I was getting $80 per month at Ranch branch. I taught there six years, and I asked the trustees would they "raise my salary." They were older men, and I could understand - they thought lots of me - but they said, "Now, Mrs. Polk, we're old men and we never earned $80 in our lives." You know how that went. Well, you don't know the twins - Wallis and Gilbert Shultze.
L: Before you go on, though, now let me ask: you said - about that salary - I didn't have to put it in. Now, do you mind if I put it in, or do you prefer that I leave the salary out?
P: Oh, at...where, at...?
L: The $80.
P: $80 at Ranch Branch. I don't mind it.
L: You don't mind if I put that in, then? POLK
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P: Oh, no. That is...interesting, you know. That was about what they were paying the country...the elementary teachers in Mason.
L: What was the last school that you taught in, regularly? You know, not substitute, but regular day to day teaching.
P: At Mason. I taught part of the third grade. At Mason
P: Elementary, in the old...big old two-story building there.
L: Was that after you left Ranch Branch?
P: It was after I left Ten Mile [school]. That's when there weren't any more little schools, any more. I taught three years at Ten Mile and then...
L: Ten Mile was a one-room school, though?
P: Uh huh, it was a one-room school.
L: That was the last one-room school you taught at?
P: The last one-room school.
L: What grades did you teach at Ten Mile?
P: Well, I taught from the first grade on through the eighth. But, of course, I couldn't say that every grade was filled up.
L: About how many children did you have in your school?
P: Aw,it was about...now, there is where I was lucky. They had twelve children. You want to know what they offered me?
L: What?
P: Hundred forty dollars a month. (Laughter)
L: Ooooh. That's why you went to Ten Mile, huh?
P: (Laughing heartily) Yes, boy. Then, you know Ranch Branch POLK
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said, "Well, we would have paid more." They would have never have paid that. And, besides, one of the trustees had already turned me down. They got over it.
L: How did you travel to Ten Mile? By this time, were you in the car?
P: I had a car then. Of course, I had used it before...well, at Ranch Branch, even, I had a car. I could P: never have gotten to Ranch Branch. It was off the side of the highway. Just the other side of Mason and on out toward London someplace. It was west...west of...you know where Ten Mile was. Well, now...
L: Did Ranch Branch have an elevated stage, like the teacher sat up on a platform that was higher than the rest of the classroom?
P: Ranch Branch did, but it wasn't high enough. (Laughs)
L: Back to Ten Mile, though. You had twelve children. Are they still getting back and forth to school on horseback?
P: No, no, no.
L: How are they coming to school?
P: Usually, most of them...if they didn't live close enough to walk, most of them brought their children by and dropped them off there at the school.
L: By car, then.
P: Uh huh.
L: What year are we talking about? Your Ten Mile years? POLK
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P: Ten Mile? Well, they consolidated about in '40 or '4l. It was...it must have been '39 to '4l. And, when you change that, if you see something that doesn't quite tally out, maybe you can make it, because I can't exactly remember just how that was.
L: I'm not trying to be exact, because we've skipped about L: eight or ten years as we skipped... when you got married in the '30s, we skipped a bit. You quit teaching after you got married; you quit teaching for about how long? About ten years?
P: About ten years. Then I started...
L: Was that the period when you had your son?
P: Uh huh. That's when I...I had the mumps and I lost my last...I don't know what it was but I lost the baby, and I had such a terrible case of mumps. My sis - Cricket - always grieved about that. Jack was to be gone on a cow drive. Of course, she came down to stay all night with me. And, we rolled and tumbled - she did - that night. It was terrible. She wouldn't let me light the lamp, see, I didn't have any electricity then. Next morning, when I looked at Cricket, she had jaws like that (indicates swollen) and she had slept with me. Well, you know what happened to me. They didn't have any way to do anything in those days! We went from one doctor to another - couldn't - was there any way? And the doctors said, "nothing on earth. Just keep yourself as healthy as possible." I went seventeen days, and then I... Polk
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L: Omigosh. Let's get back to the classroom.
P: Well, you don't want a lot about all of that.
L: No! What time, when you were in Ten Mile, your last school - we're talking about around 1940 - what time did this school start in the morning?
P: In the morning? Nine o'clock.
L: Nine o'clock? Okay.
P: All country schools started at nine. I don't know whether it was just accepted, or whether it was just a little handier for people then.
L: Did you open class, open the school, with what? A song? A speech? What - how - did you open the morning of school every day?
P: Well, of course, we always pledged to the flag at Ten Mile. Now, I don't remember so much about that. I don't mean that the Ranch Branch weren't patriotic, but they were just a little different people.
L: At Ten Mile, you opened with the Pledge of Allegiance.
P: Uh huh. And then, I taught them a lot of the songs that were beginning to come out, you know.
L: Popular songs?
P: Popular songs, and a lot of it was...I didn't want to pick up anything that had a lot of "war" about it. But, there were songs about "Anchors Aweigh", you know. There were songs like that. And we sang them in school. I taught them all the songs Polk
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of the different military, we would say. And, I don't know. I loved that little school, but...
L: I've not seen Ten Mile. I've not seen the building, but I have seen the Ranch Branch building from the inside.
P: Uh huh. Ten Mile was a stucco, the only stucco building I ever taught in.
L: Was Ten Mile what you'd characterize as a "happy" school?
P: Well, I would say it was. Only, it hung over us like a cloud.
L: The war?
P: No! Well...the war, of course. But the cloud was the fact that they would do something about going to...
L: Mason. Back to the city.
P: Oh, they really....believed in that. It grieved me to see what would come, but they could all see the boys as great football
P: players. They could see all the girls...I don't remember just what all, but then, something wonderful about them too. They couldn't realize that, when their children went there, as fine and wonderful as they were, they were just common kids. But, you don't have my book on Mason? Yeah, that's what you were on.
L: Which one?
P: My book? You might get it out of the library. "For All Those Pupils (Whose Lives Touched Mine) I've Taught..."
L: Oh yes, I've got that one. I got it when you won your award.
P: Well, you look in that - along the back of it - and I wrote Polk
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with complete honesty what I saw about it. Honey, they were so anxious to get those children and get that money, they just grabbed them up - oh, it was - I taught at the time, coming into Mason. It just made me sick.
L: Well, you know, I'll guess I'll do some "philosophy." The L: more you study history, the more you find out that things just run in cycles. Nothing changes, people don't change. And today, there are still people who are telling us what we should be doing with our schools. And the grades are still going down, and the kids are still getting less and less education for more and more money. And we've got these people who are telling us how we should be running our schools better. I don't know. If you worry about it and get excited about it, it'll make you sad.
P: But you get tired of it sometime. But you know how it is now. All right, then, everything was put before these country people...how wonderful it would be to get your children out of those little old ignorant schools, and get them....
L: ...into town where they could really go somewhere.
P: Uh huh. And where they could learn dope and things like that, because...
L: That's probably more "modern" than it was back in the '40s, but they had their own version of it?
P: They had their version of it.
L: Back, generally speaking, with your time in a one room school Polk
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-this is something else that's probably common - did you have more problems with the children you taught, or the parents of the children you taught? Which gave you the biggest headaches?
P: I really...well, I really...I told you about that one parent, but, I really didn't have much trouble with the
P: parents, and I didn't have much trouble with the children.
L: Good, good. You were...part of a, actually you weren't part of a big bureaucracy in those days. You didn't have school boards and busses and committees and procedures and trustees...you were kinda "it." You were the teacher, the principal, you were in charge of building maintenance. You did everything except write your own paycheck and the trustees did that, right?
P: Everything. And worse than that, all the - if you knew how the fields were run then. The fields now are squared, and everything, and the big tractors and all. The fields then, a little jog run off there. And then, they found another little place they could plant...
L: Every place they could clear?
P: They made just one round like that (gestures.) Then, they'd come to teacher - I was teacher - "would you please figure out our acres?" My lord, those men were a whole lot better at that than I was. But I....
L: Who was better at it?
P: The men of the community. I don't know whether they were testing teacher...maybe they were. Polk
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L: Maybe they were (laughing).
P: Anyway, I said, "well, I'll do the best I can." But I told them - I said, "why?" But they couldn't see why it was odd. And I would just work and work and work on it, and I'd come and I'd say, "now, that's the best that I can figure." P: "Yeah, that's what we figured it was." I could have just pulled their hair out! They were testing me.
L: Well, they were checking up on themselves, too, to see if teacher could teach them something they didn't know. And they probably walked away feeling pretty smug, "by golly, that teacher and I got the same answer so we're both pretty smart." If you'd gotten a different answer, you'd have been to blame.
P: But if I didn't get it right, then I was to blame. And sometimes I would've been to blame. Who could figure all that?
L: I'd have trouble (with it) today. At the Ten Mile school....
P: Well, I went into Mason then and taught a full year.
L: I'm kinda trying to keep us at the Ten Mile one because it's a one-room schoolhouse and I'm kinda trying to stay with the rural education rather than getting into town. I feel as bad about going
L: to town as you do. At the Ten Mile school, did you have things like entertainment? Did you have class plays, pageants, was it...?
P: I guess they did. I wrote all of them.
L: Did you? So you were writing, even then. Did you have Polk
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enough schoolbooks for your kids at Ten Mile?
P: Yes, they did. And they had a pretty good little encyclopedia. They were - most of them had had a little better education themselves, and all. They were fairly well P: fixed, too. They were Germans, a lot of them - not all of them, understand, but a lot of them. But, I didn't...I don't remember. I know that Adela Schultz laughed about her little boy. They got to having a lot of fun in school, the little boys. I didn't want to get after them, but I told them they'd have to stop, I'm busy. So I didn't say anything. I went out and got a little old switch, came in with it, and just laid it on my desk. I didn't say a word. She said Kenlee got home and said, "Mama!" Said, "you know, I believe she would have used that on us." I told her I sure would have used it (laughing).
L: This was the little Schultz girl?
P: Yes.
L: What was her first name?
P: Kenlee. He's still...
L: That's the boy or the girl?
P: Boy.
L: The boy is Kenlee? (figuring it out, Adela was the mom.)
P: Kenlee. Ken, they call him now, because he broadcasts for games on - oh, I want to say - I don't know if it's Brownwood or
P: somewhere. They still... Polk
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P: And, they were nice people there. I still - well, they had gone into church work a lot, and they learned a lot from that, and all, of course, and they just had it a little easier. And there were some paved roads, remember, then. We P: didn't know what paved roads were when I taught at Ranch Branch.
L: When you taught at Ranch Branch, though, you had blackboards on the wall? And they were boards painted black?
P: They were good boards.
L: When I was out there two years ago, somebody had put modern blackboards over those, these chalkboards, and as the rain had gotten in, the modern ones had just disintegrated (groans from Stella heard here), they were falling off, and your (original) blackboards were still there, and there were still math problems written on the old blackboards.
P: Most of them were slateboards. Now, at Fly Gap, they had - not Fly Gap, but at Ten Mile they had slateboards.
L: You had slate by the time you got to Ten Mile? What were your kids doing their lessons on? Was there a shortage of paper and pencil, or at Ten Mile were they using slates?
P: Yeah, and at Ten Mile, and I used something that I had employed all those years. I didn't ask anybody's opinion. Like this was my table, I sat along (like so) - they always had those long benches because they had church, you know, before they had those church buildings in town. I'd set one of those long benches facing me. I had a rule (that) any child in that room who knew Polk
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his lesson
P: could come and sit on that bench and listen to anybody's lesson he wanted to listen to. Then, I taught them something else. I was strict, but I had my own rules, I couldn't afford P: to... And, so often, I taught them that a slate board was a good time to draw what they had learned from those lessons they listened to. And they knew if they tiptoed over there and began to draw, that was alright. But it better not be old silly drawing because they didn't go back 'till another week, and oh, going to that board was wonderful to them. But I have to tell you one thing that I always teased Kenlee about (he was my first grader.) He'd listen to current events, and of course, the war was really pretty rough at that time, and "the road to Tokyo." The "road to Tokyo," you know, that stuck in his mind. So, he had come to listen to the current events, of course. So, he slipped off and tiptoed to the board and I never saw such slashing with chalk. Oh, that made me mad because they knew how strict I was. And I said, "Kenlee, you know the rule I made. You don't make old silly marks and slashes all over those boards." Boy, his blue eyes shot fire. "That's not slashes! That's the road to Tokyo!" So, what can you do? (laughter)
L: He had you, didn't he?
P: Boy, he sure did!
L: But the slate board he was writing on was the big board. Did they ever have the slate boards - each individual boards Polk
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- that they wrote lessons on?
P: Not too many. Now (when) I grew up, I learned on a slate board.
L: Well, did they have papers and pencils, or did they just L: go to the board to do their stuff?
P: No, they had papers and pencils, but they knew, they loved to go to the blackboard. And I liked that, because they would depict something that was in their minds. I could come to school at Ten Mile on Monday morning, or sometime, and I could look on that board and almost picture what excitement they had. They'd been to a rodeo - you never saw as many big hats and wild horses and all. I'd get the biggest kick out of that. But I loved that!
L: This was at Ten Mile. Jumping back about thirty years or twenty years earlier. Did any of your earlier kids have to use slateboards, or did they always find papers and pencils accessible, available?
P: I can't remember, they probably had. But I believe we used those big old red Chief tablets. I really don't believe that - but now I remember - I learned on a slate board. But then, that's too far back.
L: How long did you teach at Ranch Branch? About four years?
P: Six years. I taught at Ten Mile three years. That's when they all went to town.
L: So, when you left Ten Mile, did the school just close forever? Polk
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P: Yes, they used it for a community room sometimes, and Forty-Two and things like that. [transcriber's note: Forty-Two is an game played with dominoes by old folks like my family.]
L: No more schoolhouse. You were the last person to teach there.
P: Far as I know, that's right.
L: Is that (school) still standing today?
P: It's there today. I haven't seen it, but it's there today.
L: Does it still have the desks inside?
P: I really don't know. Now, you could...
L: You know this little school halfway to town, halfway to Mason? Now what's that, is that the Kothman school?
P: Now, the Ten Mile school, you took the highway to Menard and traveled so far, then you would turn off to the right there. And You could go by that little Ten Mile school, then. It wasn't too far off. If you could get acquainted with...oh, any of those people. They know me, and they know the school and the kids are all grown and most of them remember me.
L: Well, as I said earlier, did you have any really unusual stories, or exciting stories or scary stories? You said later. Can you think of an exciting or a scary story--a time you were really scared or really excited while you were teaching?
P: Well, I had one excitement that I didn't repeat and I was to blame for it. It was customary back in those days when you didn't have anything else, you had...can you tell me what those Polk
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lights that they laid along the road and lit them and they'd light up, and have - what did they call them, do you
P: know?
L: Were they electric?
P: No, no...
L: Lanterns?
P: No.
L: I'm lost.
P: Well, I'm lost too, because I used it one time.
L: Lights beside the road...inside the building we're talking about now?
P: Yes, but I can't remember what those - it seemed like - it was like - candles or something, only it was kind of explosive. I know that one time I had them, it got kind of explosive and we just we cut it out.
L: Did you catch the building on fire?
P: No, it just flared up against the stage when we were having a program. Boy, we didn't use any more of that. And I had just started at Ranch Branch. That's a bad start on me. But, they kept me. They'd have had me there until now, I guess now. Probably wouldn't, but then...
L: Did you teach any really brilliant children - children that went on to be scientists or rocket drivers or jet pilots or...
P: Well, I saw some that I really...I really tried to encourage some of those children. There's one at Ranch Branch, that 'til Polk
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this day, he'll always say, "Miss Stella, you taught me." Why, if there's anything I taught to Elroy, P: it was, when he'd say, "I didn't have a chance." I'd say, "we all have a chance." We do. And, he'll tell you today - oh, he really...well, now, a lot of those at Ten Mile. But I don't give myself credit for that. I think their way of life, you know, probably built them up a little.
L: Home environment, families, encouragement. That's something we're missing today, too. What was Elroy's last name?
P: McWilliams.
P: What does he do now?
P: You don't know Brady much, do you?
L: No, I've not spent a lot of time in Brady.
P: Elroy, after all the years, he retired. And his wife came ahead of him. They had planned to buy one of those old, old homes in Mason and re-do it. But they couldn't get Mason. They bought a doctor's, retired, home that was just about going to pot. Oh, they have made a brilliant thing out of it! It's beautiful. And, they live right across the street from my sister, Cricket.
L: In Brady.
P: Uh huh.
L: What did he do for a living before he retired?
P: Well, I don't think, actually, he was... I don't know what Polk
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he did. He was with a company, because I know he was in Wisconsin at the time when his wife first came down and began work on that house and he couldn't get off until... But I
P: don't really know just what that - I could find out.
L: No, just curious. You went from Ten Mile into Mason and you taught third grade for three or four years there.
P: I just taught it one year.
L: One year, and you said "that's all of this city school I want?"
P: I don't - I don't remember why I quit. That was the year that my son graduated from...that was '47. My son graduated from Mason.
L: Mason High School?
P: Uh huh.
L: I won't even ask you about teaching in town. That's not what
L: interests me. The little one room country schools interest me and I won't even get into town. You only taught there for a year, anyway. You did sub there for several years after that, though, didn't you?
P: Oh, I substituted for about twenty years...in elementary, and I did go to high school if I had to, but I didn't like it.
L: Well, Stella, this timed itself out pretty well. You obviously have developed a lot of toughness over your lifetime.
P: Yes, I have. Polk
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L: Here you are, living by yourself, way out on the ranch. Have you ever thought of moving to town and living someplace, where someone could help take care of you?
P: (laughing) No, thanks. No, thanks.
L: Has anybody ever suggested that to you?
P: (laughing) Oh, goodnight.
L: I'm just teasing you. You've reached an age, though, where you can just do what you want to, be what you want to be, without having to please anybody.
P: That's right. I thought I just couldn't live without my Jack (my husband) and my son. But, you do what you have to do, David.
L: You've never been particularly shy, have you?
P: Really not. I've done too much public speaking all over Texas. You know, that's pretty educational. I told you about the boy that thought, when I reviewed Dr. Zhivago, how wonderful it was, and if I just had a degree how much more wonderful it would have been. I agreed with him, and then I thought, well, kinda like that lady that wanted me to teach and I told her I didn't have a degree. And she said, "darned old degree can't teach." And I thought, Oh Lord. That darned old degree that I didn't have didn't teach me anything in Dr Zhivago. (laughing) I'm glad you got that on the tape (also laughing.) We're just about to the end. As usual, I have enjoyed coming up visiting with you. Hope to come back again. I'm really glad that you Polk
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took time to sit down with me and put a little piece of Texas history on tape. We'll get it on black and white (paper), we'll get it in folders in our library and in our vertical files, probably, and it'll be
L: there for somebody who wants to know about schoolhouses. And maybe they'll learn something about (rural schools) that you might not find anywhere else.
P: Well, I wish they would. Now, there is Larry Hodge. He's going to put out a wonderful - it'll be a Texas History - book. Now, Larry...who can tell those things like I told you, if they hadn't experienced it? But there's something I would like to tell you about what happened at Ten Mile. You can keep it in your mind, maybe. Not Ten Mile, but Ranch Branch. Oh, I really made those stories exciting. And when we got to where they began to cross the country to get to the Pacific Ocean and all, I really had them excited. One of the little boys there broke into my excitement and said, "Teacher, how did they shoe an ox?" I didn't learn that when I went to school. How would you shoe an ox? I thought of his great-grandfather that had told me that he couldn't read and write. Of course now, you go back into those '40s and all, you weren't
P: surprised that a lot of those old codgers couldn't. But he couldn't. But I said, "Charlie, go and ask your great-grandfather how to shoe an ox." Boy, he got over there the next morning and he laid it out how we shod an ox. And he Polk
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told us so much, you know, I just didn't have school until we got left off. Why should I do so? He told things that I couldn't teach in school because I hadn't had it. Another time I did that, too, at Ranch Branch. I should have been run off long ago. But, I remember putting their -it was the
P: fourth grade - I put their tests on the board. I could do that, you see. That's about all. We didn't have any way, you see, to pass out slips and all that. And we had been studying about health and we had been studying about habits and the formation of this and that. I really went into it. I wrote on the board, "What is a habit?" And, I'm glad you weren't there to have me fired. That little boy beat Webster's all to pieces. He said, "A habit is an easy thing to learn ON, but boy it sure is hard to learn OFF." Webster didn't do that well, did he?
L: No, he didn't. You gave him credit for that, I hope?
P: Gave him a hundred. Wasn't that awful?
L: You bet. (laughing)
P: I'd have been fired in town. I don't know! Last time I taught at the Library and all, I'd asked the sub-principal down there, I said, "Has anybody complained about me?" He said, "No, Mrs. Polk! They're glad to have you!" "Well," I said, "I sure have broken the rules. I can't help it."
L: Somebody that spent as many years as you did, by yourself,
L: teaching in the country, they didn't make rules for you then. You make your own rules as you go along. Polk
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P: That's what I loved about it. That's what I grieved for when I got to even teaching in town. You...
L: That's another whole argument. I'm just going to turn the tape off and say "Thank you" one more time.
P: I hope I've helped you a little.
L: You've helped me a lot, Stella.
-END OF INTERVIEW-
(very close to the end of the 2nd side of tape)0

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THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Stella Polk
DATE: 1 May 1992
PLACE: Ranch Home, Northern Mason County, Texas
INTERVIEWER: David LaRo
L: I am David LaRo. I'm with the Institute of Texan Cultures and I'm interviewing today Stella Gipson Polk. We're interviewing at her ranch home in northern Mason County on a beautiful spring day. The sun is shining outside and we're looking out under the yard oaks at the pasture out there toward the tank...just to give you a feeling of what it's like up here right now. Stella is not only a country schoolteacher, but she's written several books. The most recent book is titled For All Those Pupils Whose Lives Touched Mine, published by A&M Press about three years ago. She still writes a weekly column, "Ranch News", for the Mason newspaper. She contributes a similar column to the Marble Falls Picayune. She is the sister of the late Fred Gipson, author of several children's books and books on Mason County, including Old Yeller. I've been told that Fred was once asked, "Why do you only write about Mason County?" His reply was, "Because that's all I know anything about."
P: (Laughter)
L: Contains a powerful message, doesn't it? Stella authored
L: Mason and Mason County: A History, published by Pemberton Press and then reissued by Eaken. It's now out of print and POLK
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it's very scarce, but it is not the usual "county history/genealogy" book. It is a well-researched history book. Stella, like her brother, writes about what she knows best, and that's what makes her writing good. Stella and I will be talking about "early days, education in a rural Texas Hill Country community." There's so much she can tell us about small Hill Country schools that darned few people still know anymore.
L: Stella, I'll bet you were born in Mason county, weren't you?
P: I sure was. The first Gipson to be born in Mason County.
L: Care to tell me what year?
P: 90...1901.
L: 1901. Where did you finish high school?
P: At Mason. The old grammar school, they called it. It still stands there. It's a...going to be a museum now.
L: I've been there! What year did you finish high school?
P: 1918.
L: 1918. How many grades were you required to go through at that time in order to get a high school diploma?
P: Eleven, I think. Now it's twelve, and I think then it was eleven.
L: Well, I guess you lived with your family all during your school years.
P: Uh huh...yes.
L: Who were your family? POLK
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P: [Going back to previous question]...Except the summer I spent at San Marcos.
L: Okay; that was after you graduated. Who were your family? How many brothers and sisters did you have?
P: Well, my family was Beck and Emma Gipson. My family came from Winnsboro, Texas, and my older sister, Jenny, was born in Winnsboro.
L: Winnsboro. Your father was Beck, b-e-c-k?
P: B-e-c-k. Beckton, of course, was his name. Beckton. That's where the son...uh, grandson...gets his name - Fred's boy. Well, my father contracted such serious arthritis, or let's call it rheumatic fever, I think they called it. And the doctor told him if he didn't get out of that climate around Winnsboro - you know how damp and all - he just couldn't live. My mother always dreamed that maybe someday she could go and live where they had hills. She longed for a place where they had lots of hills. So, we...they started out in that covered wagon. What else did they have in those days? And they stopped at Beaumont and stayed there a while because my grandparents - my maternal grandparents - were there. My sister, Bessie, was born there.
L: That's the one sister, Bessie.
P: Uh huh. No; Jenny, you see, was the first one.
D: Okay. Jenny?
P: Uh huh.
L: And then Bessie... POLK
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P: Bessie.
L: And who was next?
P: I would have been, but I hadn't gotten there yet.
L: Okay.
P: Then they came on and they stopped - almost stopped for good - at College Station. We've always wondered what our history would have been like.
L: Well, you would have cheated us out of a lot of good books from Mason County, wouldn't you?
P: [Laughter] And then we came on - he came on and strangely enough...I'm going to add this because it's a family history. Mama had a big rawhide trunk. She wanted to take something to her new neighbors. And she thought, "Well, why not pack a group of alligator eggs?" So she packed them in that big trunk. Well, I don't know how long it took them to get to Mason County because my daddy stopped and worked, sometimes, on the way. When they got to Mason County and got to where they could open up the trunk, it was full of baby alligators. [Laughter]
L: Oh, my gosh! What a present to give your neighbors! Oh, man. So, you had, uh...when you got here, you were born, and later Fred. Were there any others between you and Fred? Or was Fred the baby of the crowd?
P: Ethel was my...I lost her so early, in l936, we lost P: Ethel.
L: So, Ethel was before you or after you? POLK
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P: Ethel was born after I was. I was born in Mason, Ethel was born in Mason, Fred...all of them were born in Mason. That is, their home life was in Mason.
L: So, altogether I've got five of you kids?
P: Seven.
L: Seven...who were the two I've missed? I've got Jenny and Bessie and you, and then Ethel and Fred. There's some in between?
P: That's five. Cricket - or Christiana.
L: Oh, Cricket I've met. And who else?
P: Charles. He was the baby.
L: Oh, Charles was the baby. I don't know why I had it in mind Fred was. Okay, we're going to talk about schools. Where did you first teach school?
P: At Hilda. I had planned, when I came home from San Marcos that summer, I was going to enter the university. But time does strange things. That was in the first World War and they took very, very few women for anything then. And my brother-in-law was Lee Loeffler, L-O-E-F-F-L-E-R, and my sister, Jenny - the two of them were teaching at Hilda.
L: Hilda is a little community, about twenty miles south of here?
P: Uh huh. That's right. You know where it was. Well, Lee didn't want to go off to war unless I would consent to teach P: with Jenny. I didn't much want to. I wanted to go to the university. Well, I thought maybe I wouldn't pass the POLK
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examinations. I had just come out of school, and it wasn't a bit of problem to pass those examinations. So, of course, I got it. I was sixteen years old when I started teaching there. Oh, my goodness.
L: So, you had no time for college. You went right out of high school to teaching? How did you get certified to teach at the age of sixteen?
P: They gave teachers' examinations. The...I guess you'd call it the...well, it would be the school board. Whatever you would call it, maybe you could call it.
L: In Austin?
P: Uh huh, in Austin.
L: State Teachers'...
P: They put out those examinations. They thought very few people could pass them, but...I have an idea they needed more teachers. I wasn't...that...wonderful. But Jenny had always taught the primary and Lee had taught the others. They were both - I don't know exactly about degrees and all, but they both had attended San Marcos Normal. And Jenny couldn't teach algebra because she had always taught those little ones. Well, Stella fell...well, she fell heir to algebra. It didn't bother me because I'd just come out of high school. It would bother me now. Well, I had three boys almost my age. One of them was a little older than I was. Do you want the story or P: not?
L: Sure! Do I look like I'm going to sleep? POLK
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P: No! I just wanted to know. Anyway, I had never given an examination or anything...and I had taught those little ones until I turned out in time for the boys to come for their algebra. And they were very polite, very nice boys. They could hardly get in those little desks, but they managed. Well, we had algebra. I thought I was a pretty good teacher. They knew...oh yes, they wrote their paper so nicely. But that's all they wrote! Finally, I gave a test. That was the first test I had ever given in my life, and I don't think I made it hard. But those boys sat there, politely, smiling. I said, "Boys, don't you know any of the answers?" They admitted they didn't. I'm ashamed to tell this - I helped them with their test. Oh! They were the most grateful boys you ever saw. The only thing that ruined it, I was dating one of those boys' older brother, and he spilled the beans. He said they were laughing all over the country about that little old teacher they had. They wouldn't have to study algebra now. She would...if they looked sad...she would help them. You have heard that old saying about...what is it? Heaven help the woman that...well, it's a...
L: Something about...a woman scorned?
P: A woman scorned. Well, I was a woman scorned. I really drilled them on that algebra. They were just so sweet and nice and polite. I put it on the board - that's what they P: used all those pretty blackboards for, then. And one of them made "5"; the other two couldn't pass anything. They just POLK
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wrote their heading. I took up the papers. And I guess that's what comes of a...hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That's right!
L: Okay.
P: Well, Lee came back in the spring and, of course, he wanted back into his school. I had come to love those little pupils, and I didn't want to leave them, but I did. I left. Then I went to Fly Gap later that year.
L: Before we leave Hilda, let me ask you a question. I would like to try to put this in perspective. You went there in 1918?
P: Uh huh.
L: I looked this up, and I find that's just barely seventy years after old John Meusebach had signed the Indian treaty - seventy years later.
P: What was his name?
L: John Meusebach.
P: Oh, Meusebach. Yeah. That's right.
L: This was seventy years after he had signed the treaty with the Indians to bring the Germans in here.
P: That's exactly right. That goes in there.
L: Was Mason County still pretty "German" in 1918?
P: All German, that I knew. But, you see, my parents had come to that part of the Hill Country when it was hardly P: settled at all. And they were what they called "Anglos". The Germans were..."the German" part of Mason. Well you know, POLK
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of course, it didn't go too well - two different sections. But anyway, you don't want to get into the Mason County War, I don't guess, although it had already happened, before my parents got there. They were through with it by then. All but the feelings. The feelings were there as long as I lived. When I wrote the Mason Pageant, they almost had the war again.
So, they had me cut a lot of it out. [Laughter]
L: When you taught at Hilda, did you live in that community - the Hilda community?
P: Yes. My...Jenny's parents-in-law had a two-story building. Now, Germans at that time were living well. They had lived that long. They came in about '49. You see, that was 1918, and they had done well. Even a few of them had bought a few cars, but they couldn't drive them for the roads were so awful. So they put them up on blocks. And kept them. [Laughter]
L: I was going to ask about that. How far was the two-story house where you lived from the schoolhouse?
P: I imagine about a mile and a half.
L: How did you get to school every day?
P: You know...you know how it is when two people walk?
L: Shank's mare?
P: We walked.
L: Did you have to cross any hills or mountains or rivers or L: creeks to get to school every day? POLK
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P: We had to cross...right at...almost...just right at where they lived was Beaver Creek. A beautiful Beaver Creek, then. And I always thought, "That creek sings a song." Well, it didn't sing a song until I got through with those boys - teaching them algebra. But, after that, I felt so good about everything, I could just feel old Beaver Creek singing a song. Oh, it was a beautiful thing, then.
L: [Laughter] Is Beaver Creek still running? I saw it, coming up here.
P: It's still there. It has suffered from the drought. And what hurt me, when Lee died...Jenny and her children didn't quite agree on things, so they sold that. Their home. The home was just a German home, but that creek! They had a lot of that creek, but it didn't mean anything much to them. My son was a great pal of theirs, hers, and it just broke his heart when they sold out. He just loved Beaver Creek. It's still there.
L: You've told me that the Germans were in that community, most of them were fairly well off. They had nice places.
P: They had begun to. They had really suffered their suffering from coming across the ocean...and landing there.
L: Did they have rock homes?
P: Most of them had rock homes, or they had good homes. And their church house there is very nice now. And their cemetery where my sister, her husband, and the little baby girl are...
L: Your sister, Jenny, is buried down there? POLK
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P: What?
L: Your sister, Jenny?
P: Uh huh.
L: I was gonna ask about transportation. You've said some of 'em had cars, but they were up on blocks. I guess that's because of the war and they couldn't get tires and gas? How'd they get around?
P: Well, the roads were just so bad...they just mired down - the tires did. And they couldn't travel for the roads. It just rained and rained and rained, and they had no...they had no pavement. They didn't know what that was. No, that was the reason and, of course, they were very particular about their cars. They came in wagons, they came in buggies - to church. Or, they came in what they called hacks or surries.
L: I'm familiar with those. How many children were in this first class in Hilda - the primaries that you were teaching?
P: I don't think I had but two.
L: Two? A boy and a girl?
P: Two little girls...I want to say...were the first grade at Hilda. All I can remember.
L: And then you had the algebra class with the bigger kids.
P: Yes! But, no, they had the pastor's little boy. I know ...I remember him for this reason: I had...as I had the first grade, I asked them, "If you had a nickel or a dime, which would you give up and which would you keep?" And he gave me P:POLK
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an answer that stumped me. He said, "Well, I'd give up my dime and keep the nickel." And I said, "Well, why?" "Well, now, I know they'd tell me that a dime was better, but a dime's just a little old thing and a nickel's pretty good-size money."
L: And he was a first grader?
P: He still wrote to me...a long time after that. He lived in Fredericksburg. He died, now. Well, and then...from then on, I can't remember now, but it was like first, second, third and fourth. But there wouldn't be but three or four pupils.
L: In each grade, you mean?
P: One was...I don't guess you've ever heard of him, but he was a famous lawyer, I mean a doctor, Elmer Wiederman. You wouldn't know anything about him. I think he's still alive, maybe. I believe he's in...I don't know...maybe Junction. I don't know. Anyway, I know that my husband and I were eating lunch at a cafeteria in Junction. Some little boy or girl just kept watching us. Finally, she came over there and she said, "Do you see my daddy back there?" Well, I happened to notice that was Dr. Elmer Wiederman. It was his little girl. Of course, he was really bragging to her about what a perfect student he was. She said, "Do you mind telling me," said, "was my Daddy that perfect?" And I said, "Well, you go back and tell your daddy that he couldn't spell." Oh, she was so happy! She went back there, and he waved at me. He got a kick out of that, of course. But, I wrote...Elmer wrote me P: quite some time. POLK
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But I don't remember...I've lost track of him. But I kinda think he came to the Mason...when their graduation class had their celebration...I think he came then, so...
L: In this community and the others...but right now, this one...where did you get your schoolbooks? Did each of the children have a schoolbook?
P: Had to get what?
L: A textbook.
P: We had to buy our textbooks.
L: Did each child have one or did the teacher have the only one?
P: No. As a rule, we could manage some way to get the children...well now, some of them, they didn't have them all. I know Ranch Branch didn't have all the geographies and everything.
L: What subjects was you teaching...I'm sorry, were you teaching these children at Hilda? What subjects did you actually teach? I mean, did you have it broken down into different classes?
P: Well, yes. And the biggest problem that I faced...my little two first graders couldn't speak a word of English.
L: What did they speak?
P: German. Oh, you have no idea. Their churches were in German. I felt sorry for my sister. I said,"How can you stand it?" "Oh, I just listen to the songs and enjoy that; P:POLK
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and, then, I plan the next week's work that I'm going to do. (Laughter)
L: That's a good story. Did you have problems in l9l8 with children who came to school speaking German, like we had problems, and still do, with children who come to school speaking only Spanish? Were they forbidden to speak German in the schools?
P: The trustees decided that they should not teach...uh, allow...any German in schools, for this reason...which wouldn't have affected the little ones...but they said those grown boys and all - knowing that the two teachers didn't know a word of German - that they could talk just as they wished to, and we had to stop that.
L: Mischief! Can you recall what the school building in Hilda looked like?
P: Yes, I think I can. I think it was mostly lumber. And I think, later on, it was made...I believe it was a mixture, now, of concrete and lumber. It's still down there.
L: It's still there. This wasn't a true "one-room" school, because you taught part of the kids and your sister taught part.
P: Yes, that was the only one-room school that the...apparently that ACS (sic) didn't seem to mind, because, you see, I opened school, then. I almost had to use that.
L: You opened it?
P: Well, what I mean, when I started teaching, I began P: there. ASCS...oh, not ASCS, goodnight nurse! They wanted POLK
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"one-room" schools, you see. I taught other schools. I taught...I was principal over at Katemcy - two story, three- teacher school. It was a big school. Ninety-nine students.
L: Two story, three-teacher...that was a big school.
P: That's right. But, *they didn't want that, so I didn't use it. (Note: "they" refers to A&M Press, in recent book.)
L: I'm sure that in l9l8 and in l992, the basic problems that schoolteachers face is still the same thing - how do you get that little brain to decide to learn?
P: (Laughter)
L: Do you recall, or can you think of any problems that were really unique to that school? That you wouldn't have today?
P: You mean, in those little schools?
L: Well, in this little school in the Hilda community. Was there anything there that was really unusual that you wouldn't find today? Other than the children speaking German.
P: Well, I did something that I should have been fired for. Maybe you better put that. I couldn't stand to see those little children standing around smiling...didn't know a word of...it was awful! All day long, five days a week, [they] couldn't say a word because they didn't know anything but German. They could read beautifully, but they didn't know what they were reading.
L: That still happens today, doesn't it?
P: It does?
L: Yes. POLK
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P: Well, now...if you tell that on me now, I think it'll be all right.
L: Okay. We're gonna put it in the paper, and we'll let somebody worry about it.
P: I took those little children to the far end of the school ground...and I couldn't speak very well to them...but I made them understand we were going to have a playhouse. They brought their little stove, their doll and all, and I helped them line with rocks, and all, their playhouse. And it didn't show from the building. And I don't care whether I did right or wrong, the happiness on their faces was all I asked. They could talk German there, don't you see?
L: You gave 'em a little place to go during their recess and lunch where they could talk German.
P: Yes, uh huh. That's right.
L: Well, I'm glad there are still teachers like you around, that care more about people than rules.
P: One of those first graders is an old great-grandmother now. Sometimes she remembers me when she...used to write to me, I don't know. In time, it gets where they don't. Kids don't ever forget, and I don't ever forget. I remembered more things in Ranch Branch than any place, because I taught there six years. You see, at Hilda...
L: How long were you at Hilda? That's a good question here. Were you there one year or two years? POLK
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P: Where?
L: At Hilda.
P: I didn't finish the first year. You see, Hilda came back in the...I mean, Lee came back.
L: You mean, he came back before the year was out?
P: Oh, yes.
L: And he took his job back? And you...
P: He took his job back, and I went on.
L: Where did you go from there?
P: Now, I really did go on to spend a few months at Streeter - to finish out something - but, it was a two-teacher school, and I didn't teach long enough. Then I went to Fly Gap.
L: Now, I've looked it up. That's two words, FLY GAP. Can you tell me where it got its name? That's got to interest somebody.
P: They were...that was during the time when all the men were in the army. And the Indians were terrible, even at that time, of course. And, you see, when they took the men out of circulation, it was hard on the women and the little boys and all, in some places. And they would, they had a...they formed what was known as a...oh, I can't think, right now. It was...they formed an organization. Even the old men helped with that, too. To help protect people from the Indians and, uh...
L: Sort of a "home guard"? POLK
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P: Yes, but they didn't call it that. I can look it up in P: that book, or have you got one? (Voice gets too low to understand)
L: No.
P: Well, we'll find it in a little bit. I can't think right now. But they had hidden their horses...they were scouting on the Indians at that time...they had hidden their horses up on a slope where there was so much timber they couldn't see them. The Indians couldn't see them. And that was a time when there was no way in the world you could protect...the big blowflies, and all that...because we didn't have anything then. I can remember when we got rid of the flies, nearly. And when they got back to their horses, the flies had just absolutely eaten them up, nearly. And they were just bloodied all over from those horrible flies. That's why I hate to tell that, but it was a horrible thing. They named...it was in the gap of the mountains. They named it Fly Gap. Don't you see why?
L: I see! I'll be darned. Yeah, that is an awful story about those horses.
P: I won't hardly tell that (story.) But you could shorten it some way and say that...
L: No. We'll put it in like you said it.
P: Well, that's the way it's supposed to have been.
L: Do you remember how much you got paid at Fly Gap?
P: Now, that was the one that I can't quite...it must have POLK
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been $50. It's what I want to think, because... No, at Fly Gap, now wait. I'm thinking about Hilda. I think I got $60 P: at Fly Gap.
L: Was that in addition to your room and board, or did you have to pay your own board?
P: No; I had to pay my board. I think I paid $l5 dollars a month, maybe, with the Fleming family. They've never forgotten me to this day. When I got to wanting channel cat to go in my pond, here came some of my old Fly Gap friends. They'd seined them out of their creeks and all. So I have twenty-two channel cat in the...
L: How'd they know you wanted the channel cat?
P: I talked to the...(can't hear the words) on the telephone and mentioned something about it.
L: Very nice. So you lived with the Flemings. How far was the Fleming house from the schoolhouse? And, again, how did you get back and forth?
P: On my little feet.
L: You still walked. How far was it to walk?
P: About half a mile, I'd say. Now, understand, the children rode horseback. Why, it looked like a rodeo.
L: Probably more than one on a horse, though, did they? They'd ride up two or three deep.
P: Oh, yes, uh huh. But the children rode horseback. And don't forget to put in one thing that just stumped me. When POLK
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I opened the book for us to sing that first morning, I couldn't believe how they could sing! Alto...some of those boys could come in on the bass...why, you couldn't believe it. L: What grades were these kids?
P: Well, from, now...not all the way, you know...but from the first on through the eighth.
L: Now, this was a true one-room schoolhouse at this point, right?
P: What?
l: This was a true one-room schoolhouse.
P: Oh yes, it was. Now, I really taught there three years and would have taught longer, but, uh, it became time for them to go to Mason, don't you see? They'd began to put bushes... busses out.
L: Yes. Okay, you say the kids could really sing.
P: Oh, my!
L: Were they musical, or did they play instruments - fiddles, violins...
P: Oh, yes! You ever hear of the Brown String Band at Mason?
L: I don't... Yes, I think I have, in one of the history books.
P: Oh, I have thought of...well, they called him Arlon Brown... more than one time. His mother would never release him. If he could have gone out into the world, he could have knocked people over with his fiddling. He was...ah, goodnight. Now, his two sisters had...had music, but Arlon just picked up his POLK
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music.
L: Well, I need to ask you about these kids. Was...was this L: a German community, or was this an Anglo?
P: No. No. Now they had one German (?), I think. Reason I put that there, because they all laughed, and I had to laugh, too. He had married one of the Brown girls, and, uh, he told everybody...he wanted to say that the people down there were born dancers, which they were. He said, "You know, I came into this community, and they were just born a-dancing." Born a-dancing, don't you see? But, they all accepted him and all, but they had their problems, of course, too, but...
L: Was this a rich or a poor community?
P: No, they were just moderate. Well taken care of, and what was left still had property. But they didn't go very heavily into expensive homes or anything.
L: They mostly had frame homes, huh? Board and batten, or something like that?
P: Just common homes, uh huh. And they lived well. The children...I admired them for this reason...they could go home after school and get their lessons and then milk the cows, gather up the eggs, or something like that.
L: Would you say the kids in this community were more talented than the ones in the previous one you'd been at - Hilda? As far as singing...
P: I haven't ever taught any pupils talented like that. But, POLK
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now, remember, Hilda...Hilda educated their students. They sent them off. Hilda came out... If I'd married that man that I was supposed to...he thought I ought to marry him, P: but I didn't think I ought to...but, anyway, he was a math professor at Dallas until he retired. He's dead, now. But, David, I...I'm not...I'm part German, but I'm not enough German.
L: So, you have to be called Anglo. Is that right?
P: I'm an Anglo. (Laughing)
L: What was your class size? How big was your class you had at Fly Gap, and how many were boys or girls?
P: Well, I had about twenty students, and I imagine it was just about half and half. I don't remember, but something like that. And they were all neat...I don't know. There's something about them; they're still peculiar. Because they're themselves.
L: Don't you like people that are themselves?
P: I loved them! There was one, one, family down there that was...oh, a bone in their craw. They couldn't do anything about it. Now, they were...German, but that doesn't mean that the German people didn't, weren't educated and all. But they weren't. His name, I guess maybe you ought not to put it in, but it's so interesting. (Coughing)
L: Well, don't tell it if you don't want it to go in.
P: Bohnenblust. All right; let's pick up...(Still coughing). "Bohn", or on that order, would be "beans" in German. He was born...that is, they found him in a bean patch. They don't know POLK
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whose. Somebody didn't want him.
L: So that's where he got that name.
P: "Blust" would be, according, some way in German, "blooming". "En" would be "in", maybe. Beans in blossom. The beans were all in blooming blossoms, at the time.
L: Beans in blossoms.
P: Born in blossom, beans in blossoms, bean blossoms. Isn't that interesting?
L: Yes, it is.
P: And, oh, honey, they were just filthy as the others were spotless. You can imagine. And that family tried to be good to them. They were good to them. Most communities would have scorned them, but it was hard on them. They would come with their cakes, an all. Who wanted to eat them? Now, they were filthy. And, they'd always try to put their cakes and things on the side, and then caution people not to eat them. And they were such decent people down there.
L: These were nice folks, just a little different in that respect.
P: They were clean people. But they were Anglos, and till this day, what few live down there, have retained some of those old forms. But they weren't Germans, unh unh.
L: Is the bean blossom family still around down there?
P: No. They moved off from there. 'Course, I was gone by POLK
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that time. I don't know...
L: That's good. They won't mind if we get this in print, then, will they? Can you tell me about the Fly Gap school
L: building? Now, we talked about the town - they weren't rich, they weren't poor; they were kind of middle-of-the-road, they lived in moderate houses, but they lived well. Was the school building wood or stone or permanent?
P: By the time I got there, it was a mixture of log and wood, was what...the little building still stands down there, but I've forgotten just what...hasn't been too many years since...
L: The Fly Gap building is still there. Probably not used for a school anymore, is it?
P: Oh, no!
L: How did you heat the building in those days?
P: The wood stove. One of those kind that the pipe came down and that looong wood stove. And they...I'll tell you they did heat. I had those fancy big old stoves at Katemcy - of course, we're not talking about Katemcy - but absolutely took us all night...all day...to get them warm. Boy, when that old sausage stove, as we called it, got started, why, it heated things up!
L: Who started the fire every day?
P: I usually did. I can't remember now; it seems sometimes when the weather was too bad, the Fleming boys - one of them was older than I was and one of them was my age - and, seems like, they might have gone over ahead, you know. But, I really POLK
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don't remember too much about that. But it was heated by then. Sausage stoves.
L: Here's a question I'll bet you'll remember. The building probably didn't have a water source. Did it have a well outside?
P: It had a creek running pretty close outside.
L: A creek. Okay. Who kept the water in the classroom? Did you have the boys do that? The bigger boys.
P: Sometimes they'd get on their horse and go down there with that cedar bucket and bring it back full. When it wouldn't have hurt them to have walked down there. But they were horseback. (Laughter)
L: Even then, cowboys did not like to walk, did they?
P: Oh, yeah, and listen! Some of those girls could ride. Oh, I used to look at that and think, "I wish I could ride like that." I don't think I ever acquired that. I noticed in the paper this week where Audie Fleming had died. He came over with his big old - oh, it was a donkey, big as a mule - and I was grading papers that...day. I should have stopped them. But I was a kid; I liked all that excitement. And they all wanted to ride Audie Fleming's...donkey, they called it. Boy, could he... He threw them all off! Bess finally got on, and I can see her yet. Those black plaits...flapping her back and, boy, she rode him to a finish.
L: Bess? POLK
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P: Bess. Bess Brown was her name. She died not long ago.
L: She rode him to a finish. Well, I was gonna ask if you could recall any really memorable or unusual stories about the
L: Fly Gap school. That's probably one. Can you think of anything else about Fly Gap that really is unusual, that still stands out in your memory?
P: Well, I think I could if I would just think a minute. But, I believe I can remember more of them about Ranch Branch than I can there.
L: Okay, we'll hit Ranch Branch in a second then.
P: But let's see. I remember how little Johnny...yes, I do remember one. It's not a very nice one, but it happened in those times. We had...one of the trustees was a pretty wealthy German. Now, I've got no beef against Germans, but, you know, he made them understand he was...important. But they just accepted him and went on. He didn't take any part in things much, because he was too classy. But I didn't mind it much anyway. He was... Little Johnny had a little old dirty white knife - I don't remember where he got it. Oh, he prized that knife - that was Johnny Bohnenblust. Well, one day it disappeared. He was broken-hearted. And, why I don't remember now, here came this...I could call his name but maybe I'd better not - got too many Xs in Mason for that. But, anyway, his father came over there and told me, he said, "That little old dirty devil told me that my Andrew stole his knife." And said, "I'm gonna settle POLK
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with him right here." Said, "My class doesn't mess with the Bohnenblusts." But, you know, Johnny didn't...he didn't miss...he stated all the time, he said, "Now, Andrew got my knife." Something about Andrew P: told me - you do have a sixth sense now and then - I said, "Andrew, stand up." Andrew stood up - he couldn't do any otherwise - and I just reached in his pocket and got Johnny's white knife. And gave it to Johnny. Oooh, boy, you know what that trustee...jumped high. He did: he bawled me out. He said, "I'll go to the County Judge. I'll have you fired before you can turn around." And I said, "Mr. X," (now don't use X - Mason's full of Xs), I said, "Mr. X," I said, "Did it ever occur to you that if I didn't accept that - being fired - and it went into court, what are we going to do about it?" "Why, I'll still have you fired!" I said, "Well, now, what are we going to do about it? I'd have to prove where the knife was." Boy, that did that with the trustee, but you know how the trustees do. Still, they didn't, you know, cause any trouble or anything. But I was leaving that year, because so many of them were beginning to go into Mason at that time. So, they were...some of those were getting to be big students. So, I became great friends with Andrew and the older X boy. But children can't help what their parents do. When you think about it. But I don't...I don't think...well, you might could write about it, but not make it personal in that way. But it was over a little poor half-starved boy who had POLK
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a dirty white knife. And this boy that had plenty wanted that knife. Stole it. (Laughs)
L: What year...was this when you spent your last year over at Fly Gap?
P: The last year at Fly Gap. Well, now, let's see. It would be 'l9 before I went there - I mean l9l9, l920. I guess it was l920 and '2l, maybe '22, that I taught there.
L: Must have been about '23 when you left, then - Spring of '23 or early '23.
P: Well, that's not right, either, David. I married in '2l.
L: Were you teaching there while you were married?
P: I wasn't dating Jack much then, but...that wasn't Jack's fault. Darn that Jack Polk! When he got busy and decided he wanted to get married, well...well, he had some ranch life and all. He was...they were people that...weren't on starvation or anything. But, I don't regret having married him. I wouldn't take for it. But...(Interrupted)
L: Did you keep teaching there after you and Jack got married? Did you teach there for a while?
P: I was dating him when I married then. And I married the Christmas - the first Christmas I taught at Katemcy.
P: Okay, so you had finished Fly Gap when you got married.
P: Yes. I left it.
L: Okay. Before we leave Fly Gap, I gotta ask what is a 'sausage' stove? Why did you call a stove a 'sausage' stove? POLK
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P: The sausage stove? That's what it looked like! A long iron stove. It protr[uded]...it came to...the pipe came down like that.
L: Out of the ceiling. And the body of the stove was long and like a round...(Interrupted)
P: The body was iron and it was looooong, like a sausage. And people called them the sausage stove.
L: Okay, that answers that. You got married about l92l - Christmas of '2l.
P: Christmas of '2l.
L: And you married Jack Polk.
P: Paschal was his name.
L: I'm sorry. Jack Pascal.
P: No, it was Pascal Polk (in unison).
L: Pascal Polk, and you called him Jack.
P: Polk was his name, but his daddy always called him Jack. And people today don't even know that he had the name Pascal. It's on the monument and all - Pascal (Jack) Polk.
L: He was not a German, was he?
P: No.
L: Would you categorize him as a cowboy, or a farmer, or both?
P: He was a cowboy and didn't like farming. Said his back was too long...to pick cotton. But that's no sign that boy couldn't work. But it was kinda like the old joke about the cowboys. When one came and asked to help dig a well...they asked POLK
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him can he dig a well? He said, "Yes, I could, if I could do it on horseback." Well, that's nearly like my husband.
L: He'd do it as long as he could do it from horseback?
P: What?
L: He'd do it as long as he could do it from horseback?
P: That, you know, they had that joke that, you know, to say, "Well, as long as I can do it horseback."
L: Did he do anything else for a living, other than cowboy?
P: Well, yes. Because the...great...cow drives were gone at that time, but Mason and all in this area had no...had no railroad. Mason still has no railroads, you know.
L: Right.
P: And, it was almost like gathering up the wild longhorns, but, anyway, they weren't. His daddy made those drives, but Jack was too young for that. And he helped drive that way. And I was alone quite a bit of the time for that reason. But Jack was a cowboy.
L: If he didn't have work on the home ranch, he'd work around the neighboring ranches?
P: That's right. Because, let me tell you, when he got on a horse, he was at home. So there it is.
L: Did you move into this house immediately when you got married?
P: Uh, well, I lived with his folks - we did - for a month, I guess, till he finished. Enough we could get into it. And, POLK
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understand now, it was a little bungalow then. Everything was a bungalow in that day and time.
L: And you've been here since l922?
P: l92l...well, '22. That's [when] I married him, Christmas l92l, and I've been here ever since; and it's going to take
P: more than the lights that shone all over this place to get me...
L: To get you out, huh?
P: That's right. They don't know it, I guess.
l: When you got married, you quit teachin' right away, then you didn't teach much longer.
P: I was teaching at Katemcy at the time, and I finished the next year. I taught the next year at Katemcy. But, Mason was beginning to bring in the country schools at that time. I went...when I went to Ten Mile [school], I only taught there three years until it was over for schools. Oh, we had lawyers and everybody going out and speaking, "Bring your children to Mason!" "Bring them to the city!" "They don't learn anything in these country schools."
L: Well, it makes me hurt just to hear that.
P: I told those... I told down there and I still tell it nearly everywhere. Maybe the kids didn't learn anything, but the teachers sure did! Listen, if there's anybody they wanted to get as a substitute teacher in Mason - at the elementary - it was Stella Polk. She taught all of that. Now, don't understand POLK
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that I could do everything perfectly, but I had a knowledge of all those. They called me from the first grade on. But, I was not a science teacher.
L: You didn't like science, or you just...
P: I didn't like it. Oh, my son...I'll declare...he just loved it. Now, I liked - in Biology - I liked the plant life P: and all. I really have learned wildflowers and all...I've learned that, of course. My husband taught me a lot of it.
L: I see your wildflower book right here on the table.
P: (Laughing) But, I don't know. When I came up here, my sister-in-law that I always loved so much - Lottie Sell - lived across the highway from the store in Katemcy at that...oh, not at Katemcy, but on the...I don't think they had a regular name for the store. Just Camp Air, they called it.
L: Camp Ayre - a-y-r-e, a-i-r?
P: A-i-r.
L: What's Lottie's last name?
P: Sell - S-e-l-l.
L: Okay, that's what I wrote down.
P: And I loved her and I loved her husband and I still love their children.
L: And she was Jack's sister? You and Jack married and you taught at Katemcy.
P: I finished out that year and I taught another year. And then, by that time, oh, all that great, "Bring your children POLK
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so they'll know something!" "Bring them..."
L: And they started taking them to Mason; you just quit teaching about that time?
P: I didn't try anymore. I can't...well, I'll tell you why, later, I got called into Mason. Taught twenty years there - substitute teaching. Well, that finished it out, just about.
P: That was after they'd already consolidated, understand.
Listen, you don't have to put that in. Those ranchers that had not built fine homes, and all, had saved their money. And I was drawing as much money out in those country schools as they were paying at Mason Elementary. They couldn't take that. And, then, I was getting $80 per month at Ranch branch. I taught there six years, and I asked the trustees would they "raise my salary." They were older men, and I could understand - they thought lots of me - but they said, "Now, Mrs. Polk, we're old men and we never earned $80 in our lives." You know how that went. Well, you don't know the twins - Wallis and Gilbert Shultze.
L: Before you go on, though, now let me ask: you said - about that salary - I didn't have to put it in. Now, do you mind if I put it in, or do you prefer that I leave the salary out?
P: Oh, at...where, at...?
L: The $80.
P: $80 at Ranch Branch. I don't mind it.
L: You don't mind if I put that in, then? POLK
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P: Oh, no. That is...interesting, you know. That was about what they were paying the country...the elementary teachers in Mason.
L: What was the last school that you taught in, regularly? You know, not substitute, but regular day to day teaching.
P: At Mason. I taught part of the third grade. At Mason
P: Elementary, in the old...big old two-story building there.
L: Was that after you left Ranch Branch?
P: It was after I left Ten Mile [school]. That's when there weren't any more little schools, any more. I taught three years at Ten Mile and then...
L: Ten Mile was a one-room school, though?
P: Uh huh, it was a one-room school.
L: That was the last one-room school you taught at?
P: The last one-room school.
L: What grades did you teach at Ten Mile?
P: Well, I taught from the first grade on through the eighth. But, of course, I couldn't say that every grade was filled up.
L: About how many children did you have in your school?
P: Aw,it was about...now, there is where I was lucky. They had twelve children. You want to know what they offered me?
L: What?
P: Hundred forty dollars a month. (Laughter)
L: Ooooh. That's why you went to Ten Mile, huh?
P: (Laughing heartily) Yes, boy. Then, you know Ranch Branch POLK
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said, "Well, we would have paid more." They would have never have paid that. And, besides, one of the trustees had already turned me down. They got over it.
L: How did you travel to Ten Mile? By this time, were you in the car?
P: I had a car then. Of course, I had used it before...well, at Ranch Branch, even, I had a car. I could P: never have gotten to Ranch Branch. It was off the side of the highway. Just the other side of Mason and on out toward London someplace. It was west...west of...you know where Ten Mile was. Well, now...
L: Did Ranch Branch have an elevated stage, like the teacher sat up on a platform that was higher than the rest of the classroom?
P: Ranch Branch did, but it wasn't high enough. (Laughs)
L: Back to Ten Mile, though. You had twelve children. Are they still getting back and forth to school on horseback?
P: No, no, no.
L: How are they coming to school?
P: Usually, most of them...if they didn't live close enough to walk, most of them brought their children by and dropped them off there at the school.
L: By car, then.
P: Uh huh.
L: What year are we talking about? Your Ten Mile years? POLK
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P: Ten Mile? Well, they consolidated about in '40 or '4l. It was...it must have been '39 to '4l. And, when you change that, if you see something that doesn't quite tally out, maybe you can make it, because I can't exactly remember just how that was.
L: I'm not trying to be exact, because we've skipped about L: eight or ten years as we skipped... when you got married in the '30s, we skipped a bit. You quit teaching after you got married; you quit teaching for about how long? About ten years?
P: About ten years. Then I started...
L: Was that the period when you had your son?
P: Uh huh. That's when I...I had the mumps and I lost my last...I don't know what it was but I lost the baby, and I had such a terrible case of mumps. My sis - Cricket - always grieved about that. Jack was to be gone on a cow drive. Of course, she came down to stay all night with me. And, we rolled and tumbled - she did - that night. It was terrible. She wouldn't let me light the lamp, see, I didn't have any electricity then. Next morning, when I looked at Cricket, she had jaws like that (indicates swollen) and she had slept with me. Well, you know what happened to me. They didn't have any way to do anything in those days! We went from one doctor to another - couldn't - was there any way? And the doctors said, "nothing on earth. Just keep yourself as healthy as possible." I went seventeen days, and then I... Polk
37
L: Omigosh. Let's get back to the classroom.
P: Well, you don't want a lot about all of that.
L: No! What time, when you were in Ten Mile, your last school - we're talking about around 1940 - what time did this school start in the morning?
P: In the morning? Nine o'clock.
L: Nine o'clock? Okay.
P: All country schools started at nine. I don't know whether it was just accepted, or whether it was just a little handier for people then.
L: Did you open class, open the school, with what? A song? A speech? What - how - did you open the morning of school every day?
P: Well, of course, we always pledged to the flag at Ten Mile. Now, I don't remember so much about that. I don't mean that the Ranch Branch weren't patriotic, but they were just a little different people.
L: At Ten Mile, you opened with the Pledge of Allegiance.
P: Uh huh. And then, I taught them a lot of the songs that were beginning to come out, you know.
L: Popular songs?
P: Popular songs, and a lot of it was...I didn't want to pick up anything that had a lot of "war" about it. But, there were songs about "Anchors Aweigh", you know. There were songs like that. And we sang them in school. I taught them all the songs Polk
38
of the different military, we would say. And, I don't know. I loved that little school, but...
L: I've not seen Ten Mile. I've not seen the building, but I have seen the Ranch Branch building from the inside.
P: Uh huh. Ten Mile was a stucco, the only stucco building I ever taught in.
L: Was Ten Mile what you'd characterize as a "happy" school?
P: Well, I would say it was. Only, it hung over us like a cloud.
L: The war?
P: No! Well...the war, of course. But the cloud was the fact that they would do something about going to...
L: Mason. Back to the city.
P: Oh, they really....believed in that. It grieved me to see what would come, but they could all see the boys as great football
P: players. They could see all the girls...I don't remember just what all, but then, something wonderful about them too. They couldn't realize that, when their children went there, as fine and wonderful as they were, they were just common kids. But, you don't have my book on Mason? Yeah, that's what you were on.
L: Which one?
P: My book? You might get it out of the library. "For All Those Pupils (Whose Lives Touched Mine) I've Taught..."
L: Oh yes, I've got that one. I got it when you won your award.
P: Well, you look in that - along the back of it - and I wrote Polk
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with complete honesty what I saw about it. Honey, they were so anxious to get those children and get that money, they just grabbed them up - oh, it was - I taught at the time, coming into Mason. It just made me sick.
L: Well, you know, I'll guess I'll do some "philosophy." The L: more you study history, the more you find out that things just run in cycles. Nothing changes, people don't change. And today, there are still people who are telling us what we should be doing with our schools. And the grades are still going down, and the kids are still getting less and less education for more and more money. And we've got these people who are telling us how we should be running our schools better. I don't know. If you worry about it and get excited about it, it'll make you sad.
P: But you get tired of it sometime. But you know how it is now. All right, then, everything was put before these country people...how wonderful it would be to get your children out of those little old ignorant schools, and get them....
L: ...into town where they could really go somewhere.
P: Uh huh. And where they could learn dope and things like that, because...
L: That's probably more "modern" than it was back in the '40s, but they had their own version of it?
P: They had their version of it.
L: Back, generally speaking, with your time in a one room school Polk
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-this is something else that's probably common - did you have more problems with the children you taught, or the parents of the children you taught? Which gave you the biggest headaches?
P: I really...well, I really...I told you about that one parent, but, I really didn't have much trouble with the
P: parents, and I didn't have much trouble with the children.
L: Good, good. You were...part of a, actually you weren't part of a big bureaucracy in those days. You didn't have school boards and busses and committees and procedures and trustees...you were kinda "it." You were the teacher, the principal, you were in charge of building maintenance. You did everything except write your own paycheck and the trustees did that, right?
P: Everything. And worse than that, all the - if you knew how the fields were run then. The fields now are squared, and everything, and the big tractors and all. The fields then, a little jog run off there. And then, they found another little place they could plant...
L: Every place they could clear?
P: They made just one round like that (gestures.) Then, they'd come to teacher - I was teacher - "would you please figure out our acres?" My lord, those men were a whole lot better at that than I was. But I....
L: Who was better at it?
P: The men of the community. I don't know whether they were testing teacher...maybe they were. Polk
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L: Maybe they were (laughing).
P: Anyway, I said, "well, I'll do the best I can." But I told them - I said, "why?" But they couldn't see why it was odd. And I would just work and work and work on it, and I'd come and I'd say, "now, that's the best that I can figure." P: "Yeah, that's what we figured it was." I could have just pulled their hair out! They were testing me.
L: Well, they were checking up on themselves, too, to see if teacher could teach them something they didn't know. And they probably walked away feeling pretty smug, "by golly, that teacher and I got the same answer so we're both pretty smart." If you'd gotten a different answer, you'd have been to blame.
P: But if I didn't get it right, then I was to blame. And sometimes I would've been to blame. Who could figure all that?
L: I'd have trouble (with it) today. At the Ten Mile school....
P: Well, I went into Mason then and taught a full year.
L: I'm kinda trying to keep us at the Ten Mile one because it's a one-room schoolhouse and I'm kinda trying to stay with the rural education rather than getting into town. I feel as bad about going
L: to town as you do. At the Ten Mile school, did you have things like entertainment? Did you have class plays, pageants, was it...?
P: I guess they did. I wrote all of them.
L: Did you? So you were writing, even then. Did you have Polk
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enough schoolbooks for your kids at Ten Mile?
P: Yes, they did. And they had a pretty good little encyclopedia. They were - most of them had had a little better education themselves, and all. They were fairly well P: fixed, too. They were Germans, a lot of them - not all of them, understand, but a lot of them. But, I didn't...I don't remember. I know that Adela Schultz laughed about her little boy. They got to having a lot of fun in school, the little boys. I didn't want to get after them, but I told them they'd have to stop, I'm busy. So I didn't say anything. I went out and got a little old switch, came in with it, and just laid it on my desk. I didn't say a word. She said Kenlee got home and said, "Mama!" Said, "you know, I believe she would have used that on us." I told her I sure would have used it (laughing).
L: This was the little Schultz girl?
P: Yes.
L: What was her first name?
P: Kenlee. He's still...
L: That's the boy or the girl?
P: Boy.
L: The boy is Kenlee? (figuring it out, Adela was the mom.)
P: Kenlee. Ken, they call him now, because he broadcasts for games on - oh, I want to say - I don't know if it's Brownwood or
P: somewhere. They still... Polk
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P: And, they were nice people there. I still - well, they had gone into church work a lot, and they learned a lot from that, and all, of course, and they just had it a little easier. And there were some paved roads, remember, then. We P: didn't know what paved roads were when I taught at Ranch Branch.
L: When you taught at Ranch Branch, though, you had blackboards on the wall? And they were boards painted black?
P: They were good boards.
L: When I was out there two years ago, somebody had put modern blackboards over those, these chalkboards, and as the rain had gotten in, the modern ones had just disintegrated (groans from Stella heard here), they were falling off, and your (original) blackboards were still there, and there were still math problems written on the old blackboards.
P: Most of them were slateboards. Now, at Fly Gap, they had - not Fly Gap, but at Ten Mile they had slateboards.
L: You had slate by the time you got to Ten Mile? What were your kids doing their lessons on? Was there a shortage of paper and pencil, or at Ten Mile were they using slates?
P: Yeah, and at Ten Mile, and I used something that I had employed all those years. I didn't ask anybody's opinion. Like this was my table, I sat along (like so) - they always had those long benches because they had church, you know, before they had those church buildings in town. I'd set one of those long benches facing me. I had a rule (that) any child in that room who knew Polk
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his lesson
P: could come and sit on that bench and listen to anybody's lesson he wanted to listen to. Then, I taught them something else. I was strict, but I had my own rules, I couldn't afford P: to... And, so often, I taught them that a slate board was a good time to draw what they had learned from those lessons they listened to. And they knew if they tiptoed over there and began to draw, that was alright. But it better not be old silly drawing because they didn't go back 'till another week, and oh, going to that board was wonderful to them. But I have to tell you one thing that I always teased Kenlee about (he was my first grader.) He'd listen to current events, and of course, the war was really pretty rough at that time, and "the road to Tokyo." The "road to Tokyo," you know, that stuck in his mind. So, he had come to listen to the current events, of course. So, he slipped off and tiptoed to the board and I never saw such slashing with chalk. Oh, that made me mad because they knew how strict I was. And I said, "Kenlee, you know the rule I made. You don't make old silly marks and slashes all over those boards." Boy, his blue eyes shot fire. "That's not slashes! That's the road to Tokyo!" So, what can you do? (laughter)
L: He had you, didn't he?
P: Boy, he sure did!
L: But the slate board he was writing on was the big board. Did they ever have the slate boards - each individual boards Polk
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- that they wrote lessons on?
P: Not too many. Now (when) I grew up, I learned on a slate board.
L: Well, did they have papers and pencils, or did they just L: go to the board to do their stuff?
P: No, they had papers and pencils, but they knew, they loved to go to the blackboard. And I liked that, because they would depict something that was in their minds. I could come to school at Ten Mile on Monday morning, or sometime, and I could look on that board and almost picture what excitement they had. They'd been to a rodeo - you never saw as many big hats and wild horses and all. I'd get the biggest kick out of that. But I loved that!
L: This was at Ten Mile. Jumping back about thirty years or twenty years earlier. Did any of your earlier kids have to use slateboards, or did they always find papers and pencils accessible, available?
P: I can't remember, they probably had. But I believe we used those big old red Chief tablets. I really don't believe that - but now I remember - I learned on a slate board. But then, that's too far back.
L: How long did you teach at Ranch Branch? About four years?
P: Six years. I taught at Ten Mile three years. That's when they all went to town.
L: So, when you left Ten Mile, did the school just close forever? Polk
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P: Yes, they used it for a community room sometimes, and Forty-Two and things like that. [transcriber's note: Forty-Two is an game played with dominoes by old folks like my family.]
L: No more schoolhouse. You were the last person to teach there.
P: Far as I know, that's right.
L: Is that (school) still standing today?
P: It's there today. I haven't seen it, but it's there today.
L: Does it still have the desks inside?
P: I really don't know. Now, you could...
L: You know this little school halfway to town, halfway to Mason? Now what's that, is that the Kothman school?
P: Now, the Ten Mile school, you took the highway to Menard and traveled so far, then you would turn off to the right there. And You could go by that little Ten Mile school, then. It wasn't too far off. If you could get acquainted with...oh, any of those people. They know me, and they know the school and the kids are all grown and most of them remember me.
L: Well, as I said earlier, did you have any really unusual stories, or exciting stories or scary stories? You said later. Can you think of an exciting or a scary story--a time you were really scared or really excited while you were teaching?
P: Well, I had one excitement that I didn't repeat and I was to blame for it. It was customary back in those days when you didn't have anything else, you had...can you tell me what those Polk
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lights that they laid along the road and lit them and they'd light up, and have - what did they call them, do you
P: know?
L: Were they electric?
P: No, no...
L: Lanterns?
P: No.
L: I'm lost.
P: Well, I'm lost too, because I used it one time.
L: Lights beside the road...inside the building we're talking about now?
P: Yes, but I can't remember what those - it seemed like - it was like - candles or something, only it was kind of explosive. I know that one time I had them, it got kind of explosive and we just we cut it out.
L: Did you catch the building on fire?
P: No, it just flared up against the stage when we were having a program. Boy, we didn't use any more of that. And I had just started at Ranch Branch. That's a bad start on me. But, they kept me. They'd have had me there until now, I guess now. Probably wouldn't, but then...
L: Did you teach any really brilliant children - children that went on to be scientists or rocket drivers or jet pilots or...
P: Well, I saw some that I really...I really tried to encourage some of those children. There's one at Ranch Branch, that 'til Polk
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this day, he'll always say, "Miss Stella, you taught me." Why, if there's anything I taught to Elroy, P: it was, when he'd say, "I didn't have a chance." I'd say, "we all have a chance." We do. And, he'll tell you today - oh, he really...well, now, a lot of those at Ten Mile. But I don't give myself credit for that. I think their way of life, you know, probably built them up a little.
L: Home environment, families, encouragement. That's something we're missing today, too. What was Elroy's last name?
P: McWilliams.
P: What does he do now?
P: You don't know Brady much, do you?
L: No, I've not spent a lot of time in Brady.
P: Elroy, after all the years, he retired. And his wife came ahead of him. They had planned to buy one of those old, old homes in Mason and re-do it. But they couldn't get Mason. They bought a doctor's, retired, home that was just about going to pot. Oh, they have made a brilliant thing out of it! It's beautiful. And, they live right across the street from my sister, Cricket.
L: In Brady.
P: Uh huh.
L: What did he do for a living before he retired?
P: Well, I don't think, actually, he was... I don't know what Polk
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he did. He was with a company, because I know he was in Wisconsin at the time when his wife first came down and began work on that house and he couldn't get off until... But I
P: don't really know just what that - I could find out.
L: No, just curious. You went from Ten Mile into Mason and you taught third grade for three or four years there.
P: I just taught it one year.
L: One year, and you said "that's all of this city school I want?"
P: I don't - I don't remember why I quit. That was the year that my son graduated from...that was '47. My son graduated from Mason.
L: Mason High School?
P: Uh huh.
L: I won't even ask you about teaching in town. That's not what
L: interests me. The little one room country schools interest me and I won't even get into town. You only taught there for a year, anyway. You did sub there for several years after that, though, didn't you?
P: Oh, I substituted for about twenty years...in elementary, and I did go to high school if I had to, but I didn't like it.
L: Well, Stella, this timed itself out pretty well. You obviously have developed a lot of toughness over your lifetime.
P: Yes, I have. Polk
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L: Here you are, living by yourself, way out on the ranch. Have you ever thought of moving to town and living someplace, where someone could help take care of you?
P: (laughing) No, thanks. No, thanks.
L: Has anybody ever suggested that to you?
P: (laughing) Oh, goodnight.
L: I'm just teasing you. You've reached an age, though, where you can just do what you want to, be what you want to be, without having to please anybody.
P: That's right. I thought I just couldn't live without my Jack (my husband) and my son. But, you do what you have to do, David.
L: You've never been particularly shy, have you?
P: Really not. I've done too much public speaking all over Texas. You know, that's pretty educational. I told you about the boy that thought, when I reviewed Dr. Zhivago, how wonderful it was, and if I just had a degree how much more wonderful it would have been. I agreed with him, and then I thought, well, kinda like that lady that wanted me to teach and I told her I didn't have a degree. And she said, "darned old degree can't teach." And I thought, Oh Lord. That darned old degree that I didn't have didn't teach me anything in Dr Zhivago. (laughing) I'm glad you got that on the tape (also laughing.) We're just about to the end. As usual, I have enjoyed coming up visiting with you. Hope to come back again. I'm really glad that you Polk
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took time to sit down with me and put a little piece of Texas history on tape. We'll get it on black and white (paper), we'll get it in folders in our library and in our vertical files, probably, and it'll be
L: there for somebody who wants to know about schoolhouses. And maybe they'll learn something about (rural schools) that you might not find anywhere else.
P: Well, I wish they would. Now, there is Larry Hodge. He's going to put out a wonderful - it'll be a Texas History - book. Now, Larry...who can tell those things like I told you, if they hadn't experienced it? But there's something I would like to tell you about what happened at Ten Mile. You can keep it in your mind, maybe. Not Ten Mile, but Ranch Branch. Oh, I really made those stories exciting. And when we got to where they began to cross the country to get to the Pacific Ocean and all, I really had them excited. One of the little boys there broke into my excitement and said, "Teacher, how did they shoe an ox?" I didn't learn that when I went to school. How would you shoe an ox? I thought of his great-grandfather that had told me that he couldn't read and write. Of course now, you go back into those '40s and all, you weren't
P: surprised that a lot of those old codgers couldn't. But he couldn't. But I said, "Charlie, go and ask your great-grandfather how to shoe an ox." Boy, he got over there the next morning and he laid it out how we shod an ox. And he Polk
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told us so much, you know, I just didn't have school until we got left off. Why should I do so? He told things that I couldn't teach in school because I hadn't had it. Another time I did that, too, at Ranch Branch. I should have been run off long ago. But, I remember putting their -it was the
P: fourth grade - I put their tests on the board. I could do that, you see. That's about all. We didn't have any way, you see, to pass out slips and all that. And we had been studying about health and we had been studying about habits and the formation of this and that. I really went into it. I wrote on the board, "What is a habit?" And, I'm glad you weren't there to have me fired. That little boy beat Webster's all to pieces. He said, "A habit is an easy thing to learn ON, but boy it sure is hard to learn OFF." Webster didn't do that well, did he?
L: No, he didn't. You gave him credit for that, I hope?
P: Gave him a hundred. Wasn't that awful?
L: You bet. (laughing)
P: I'd have been fired in town. I don't know! Last time I taught at the Library and all, I'd asked the sub-principal down there, I said, "Has anybody complained about me?" He said, "No, Mrs. Polk! They're glad to have you!" "Well," I said, "I sure have broken the rules. I can't help it."
L: Somebody that spent as many years as you did, by yourself,
L: teaching in the country, they didn't make rules for you then. You make your own rules as you go along. Polk
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P: That's what I loved about it. That's what I grieved for when I got to even teaching in town. You...
L: That's another whole argument. I'm just going to turn the tape off and say "Thank you" one more time.
P: I hope I've helped you a little.
L: You've helped me a lot, Stella.
-END OF INTERVIEW-
(very close to the end of the 2nd side of tape)0